Thursday, October 27, 2011

Social Media ROI Still Tough to Measure

Leading Social Media Tools/Tactics Used by US B2C and B2B Marketers, Aug 2011 (% of respondents)
Since marketing is a "staff" function rather than a "line" function, it is hard to measure results. That's not unusual, as it can be hard to measure the return on investment from lots of other business activities, ranging from finance and accounting to legal support or most forms of operations support that are not customer-facing. 


On the other hand, marketers "need to prove" to resource allocation authorities that return from content or other forms of marketing actually can be measured. That's the driver behind current desire for better measurement of social and content marketing efforts.


Only 13 percent  of respondents in a recent Chief Marketer survey thought they were very effective at measuring social media campaigns, while 47 percent said somewhat effective, 28 percent  said not very effective and 12 percent said not at all effective. 


Data from the August 2011 Chief Marketer “2011 Social Marketing Survey” found that only 26 percent of marketing professionals saw amassing total followers as an aim for social media marketing. More popular goals included driving traffic to a website (66 percent), generating sales or leads (48 percent), and identifying and addressing brand fans (47 percent).


The most popular tactic among survey respondents was including a social sharing button in emails or on a company website, with 69 percent of respondents saying they did that. Additionally, 59 percent offered unique content for social media fans and followers, 58 percent had a Facebook “like” button on their websites and social pages, and 54 percent posted videos to social video sites. Marketers Seek to Measure Social Media Success

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