My get shivers when I read statements like "Social Media is less about ROI and more about influence". It transports me back to late 90's nonsensical gems like "return on engagement" or "return on innnovation".
Isn't the purpose of influence to generate awareness, trial and continuity? And if social media strategies can't pay out in accomplishing these goals, why do it in the first place?
I believe a thoughtful social media strategy can pay out, but results are not necessarily immediate or easy to measure. This explains management resistance and lack of funding stats.
Btw, you did an excellent job of outlining the many pitfalls to avoid - illconceived to no strategy, poor execution, etc. Poor implementations will lead to greater resistance from brand managers to continue experimenting with social platforms.
Aliester
· 6 months ago
Nice Post!Good information and clear also. You have a nice blog and you maintain it. As far as Social Media concern Is it better to market online with social media or the search engines? because so many social media sites out there do you think they will replace the search engine for marketing online or for folks to find what they are looking for?
Eila McGinley
· 6 months ago
I read your post with interest. This is certainly an avenue worth considering. Everyone is being very careful how and where they are putting their money and social networking could make a big impact. Great article!
Don Bartholomew
· 6 months ago
Lee, Lots of good advice here. I enjoyed the article right up until the last sentence: "...the metrics piece that measures value can be associated with comparable advertising models in order to associate $ amounts. Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li do a good job of explaining this in their book, Groundswell, when describing the ROI of blogging."
Use of advertising equivalents to attempt to assign value to PR or social media is highly flawed and intellectually lazy. I actually liked the blog ROI model of Bernoff and Li until I discovered their use of ad equivalents when attempting to assign value to their metrics. There are many, many arguments against ad equivalents (here are 12: http://tiny.cc/f6omM) but common sense should tell us the value of PR or SM really has nothing to do with what an advertisement would have cost, particularly in cases (like many blogs) where advertising does not even appear.
We can and must do better in the future. Value is created by what social media and PR do for the brand/company, not what an ad would have cost.
-Don B @donbart
Jean-Paul
· 6 months ago
Hi Lee, I could'nt agree more with you.
It is a great post and after reading, I can sum up social media sucess with 4 words: Goals,Strategy,Tactics and Metrics.
You also provided very valuable links in this post. Thanks
JP
Erik
· 6 months ago
Excellent article and data. We have found that to be very true on knowledgable staff so we created a DVD called 10 minutes to twitter for CEO's and their staffs to get up to speed fast and save them 7+ hours each in learning.
Do you think B2B companies still benefit from Social Networking?
Kevan Savage
· 6 months ago
Interesting article and good stuff.
What scares is me is the "Lack of Knoweledgeable" staff! If your staff is not able to define and develop a social strategy, imagine how many customers we have to train first :)
A recent article comparing conversion rates on social networks:
Hi Lee, an interesting read. I see social media as still quite early in its adoption curve, however it seems to be emerging out of its infancy.
I think the current recession could be a huge catalyst to drive faster adoption of web analytics and social media.
It seems that in times of increasing competition and fewer resources, it will be those companies that can find new channels to connect with their customers (who increasingly happen to be using social media).
It's not always the direct impact of that specific channel, because often customers and visitors are influenced by ALL channels of interaction with a business. So a positive experience / brand recognition on Twitter would indeed benefit all channels of the business or website.
Its interesting to note that web analytics vendors are moving to adopt social media measurements into their strategies. Combining web analytics and a social media strategy such as Twitter effectively could be a potent antidote to the depression.
Looking forward to reading your future posts about this subject.
Regards, Omar
Greg Bowen
· 6 months ago
One of the greatest barriers that I find with my clients and social networking is that they flat don't understand what it can do for them.
When I explain that it is as much about participating on other people's blogs, and social networks, it starts to make sense - it is not about links, but relationships. If you meet a contact on a blog, and that turns into a sale, you have just networked socially.
Ashwin Srivastava
· 6 months ago
Interesting Post!!
During this recession, online marketing has certainly become the most important form of marketing media.
Referring to the Indian market as I am from India, recession is giving birth to start-ups and startups are giving birth to the scope of newer dimensions in Online marketing; they are going to help online marketing control the world of marketing soon.
Stefanie Hartman
· 6 months ago
Great post. A recession is an excellent time to improve relations with your customers. Not only does it help you short term for the reasons you listed, but the long term returns can be very significant.
Web Designer Greg Bowen
· 6 months ago
You know, I think that social networking as a lead generation tool is really a matter of what markets you are in.
My clients don't even know what a facebook is, let alone a twitter.
Their are coming around - and there is much wisdom in getting ahead of the curve, but they respond much better to blogs and what they can do for them because netowrking is something that they understand.
Scott Turke
· 6 months ago
What companies or organizations do a great job of social networking? On a different blog, I read where Dell attributes $1 MM in annual revenue to Twitter. Are there any really good examples? After all, unless I misunderstand, the bottom line IS the bottom line. Or, can't it be measured properly?
All Comments
Isn't the purpose of influence to generate awareness, trial and continuity? And if social media strategies can't pay out in accomplishing these goals, why do it in the first place?
I believe a thoughtful social media strategy can pay out, but results are not necessarily immediate or easy to measure. This explains management resistance and lack of funding stats.
Btw, you did an excellent job of outlining the many pitfalls to avoid - illconceived to no strategy, poor execution, etc. Poor implementations will lead to greater resistance from brand managers to continue experimenting with social platforms.
You have a nice blog and you maintain it.
As far as Social Media concern Is it better to market online with social media or the search engines?
because so many social media sites out there do you think they will replace the search engine for marketing online or for folks to find what they are looking for?
Lots of good advice here. I enjoyed the article right up until the last sentence: "...the metrics piece that measures value can be associated with comparable advertising models in order to associate $ amounts. Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li do a good job of explaining this in their book, Groundswell, when describing the ROI of blogging."
Use of advertising equivalents to attempt to assign value to PR or social media is highly flawed and intellectually lazy. I actually liked the blog ROI model of Bernoff and Li until I discovered their use of ad equivalents when attempting to assign value to their metrics. There are many, many arguments against ad equivalents (here are 12: http://tiny.cc/f6omM) but common sense should tell us the value of PR or SM really has nothing to do with what an advertisement would have cost, particularly in cases (like many blogs) where advertising does not even appear.
We can and must do better in the future. Value is created by what social media and PR do for the brand/company, not what an ad would have cost.
-Don B @donbart
It is a great post and after reading, I can sum up social media sucess with 4 words: Goals,Strategy,Tactics and Metrics.
You also provided very valuable links in this post.
Thanks
JP
http://www.salesby5.com/10-minutes-to-learn-twi...
Erik
What scares is me is the "Lack of Knoweledgeable" staff! If your staff is not able to define and develop a social strategy, imagine how many customers we have to train first :)
A recent article comparing conversion rates on social networks:
http://tinyurl.com/m7xwno
I think the current recession could be a huge catalyst to drive faster adoption of web analytics and social media.
It seems that in times of increasing competition and fewer resources, it will be those companies that can find new channels to connect with their customers (who increasingly happen to be using social media).
It's not always the direct impact of that specific channel, because often customers and visitors are influenced by ALL channels of interaction with a business. So a positive experience / brand recognition on Twitter would indeed benefit all channels of the business or website.
I've blogged about web analytics and the recession at http://tinyurl.com/p2tonl.
Its interesting to note that web analytics vendors are moving to adopt social media measurements into their strategies. Combining web analytics and a social media strategy such as Twitter effectively could be a potent antidote to the depression.
Looking forward to reading your future posts about this subject.
Regards,
Omar
When I explain that it is as much about participating on other people's blogs, and social networks, it starts to make sense - it is not about links, but relationships. If you meet a contact on a blog, and that turns into a sale, you have just networked socially.
During this recession, online marketing has certainly become the most important form of marketing media.
Referring to the Indian market as I am from India, recession is giving birth to start-ups and startups are giving birth to the scope of newer dimensions in Online marketing; they are going to help online marketing control the world of marketing soon.
My clients don't even know what a facebook is, let alone a twitter.
Their are coming around - and there is much wisdom in getting ahead of the curve, but they respond much better to blogs and what they can do for them because netowrking is something that they understand.