There is is, just over the horizon, off in the hazy, foggy distance: social media success! Just a few more Twitter followers, some more Facebook fans, more page views on our website. Oh what is that, a few blogs have picked us up and are linking to us? We must be getting close. We just hit the front page of a viral marketing site? We made it onto Digg’s front page? Yes!
Except, that social media success you are chasing is all just a mirage that we have as a culture bought into, helped along by the tens of thousands of social media evangelists who spend their days hyping, reading, sharing and producing content about how revolutionary, about how all-important social media interaction is. Ask anyone for proof of social media success and you’ll instantly hear a lot of hemming and hawing, a lot of throat clearing. I am right there with them. I was interviewed on the phone today for social media-related job and the HR person I spoke to asked about specific projects I have worked on and how I measured the success. Whether it is the first or hundredth time I have been asked the question, and despite the fact that I have both prepared answers and have actual results to discuss, even talking about social media success is impossible.
What is Social Media Success Anyhow?
Social media is still so fresh that trying to agree on an industry-approved definition of success is unlikely. Everyone has different measurements, as they should. I mean, sales is still the ultimate measurement right? But some clients don’t want sales, or at least that is not their primary goal with certain campaigns. Some are just intended for building brand equity, crisis management or some other tertiary goal.
Which is why I think it is important that we stop looking for something that doesn’t exist yet. That mirage over the horizon is a mirage and nothing more. The closer we get to it, the farther from our grasp it will be. Right now we are in the interstitial. The time before the time when social media success is not only attainable, but recognizable from as wide a perspective as one cares to employ.
Social Media Is Still Worth the Effort
Engaging with social media, crafting a strategy, successfully implementing it are worthwhile efforts even if, for the time being, success as we need to define it, isn’t attainable. We are soon approaching the period when social media marketing will have a terrific ROI. But that is not now, and the ROI is thin.
As marketing and advertising professionals continue to wrap their creative heads around social media and understand deeply the way consumers interact and behave with brands and businesses with social media, they will undoubtedly figure out how to monetize those fans and followers. Right now we get to enjoy everything for free and very few people are buying. That is why the ROI is thin. We are used to getting our fun for free, whether it is videos, or blog posts or contests. If we don’t get it for free, or if we are asked to pay something for the effort, w’ell just migrate elsewhere.
Market Me And I’ll Hate You Back
In fact, this brings up a delicate point, a psychological one. We begin to hate the brands and businesses that have the gall to market to us so blatantly. In a world of free content, where the next helping of free is but a click away, firms that ask ANYTHING from us, get shafted. Well, I just don’t know what to say about that.
What this means is that for the time being, firms are going to have to accept that their social media efforts will not produce direct ROI. Brands and businesses that engage social media, that provide exciting content in innovative ways (well designed blogs and other outlets) will see loyalty increase. They will see sales increase. But being able to tie it to their social media is not going to be easy. How far we off from the days when a comment card at a restaurant asks how the customer heard about them, and lists their blog or Twitter account as an acceptable answer?
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
I wish you could talk to and send this to the thick headed ex client of mine.
I think it is possible to track Social Media ROI in general, but not really in specifics at this point. Once you really engage in Social Media, you begin to see which clients are coming to you through this channel. Of course, the ROI for Social Media tends to be long term, as it seems to be cumulative.
.-= Fiona Bosticky´s last blog ..Motivate Me – 6 part blog series: Part 2 Loral Langemeier =-.
Fiona good point. It is trackable and that is all the difference and one of the great powers of social media. But right now what is trackable is just kind of silly. You can track lead generation and conversions, but that is pretty thin compared to how people perceive a brand’s twitter account and how that relates to sales 5 months later…which is how most people behave right?
Good points. Social ROI is a hard sell from any angle. For the restaurant industry, it can probably (maybe only) be summed up as: ROI = AIS (Asses In Seats).
haha! i like that! my new pitch!
You’re right about the hemming and hawing. It seems a lot of times when asked about social media ROI people tend to mention a specific instance (i.e. this person found me through Twitter and ended up buying a car!) or are very abstract (i.e. more people know about us!) But there doesn’t seem to be a refined way to describe the middle ground.
I think the best way to look at it (for now) is that it is an opportunity cost, and it’s about market share.
In terms of opportunity cost: We’re at the beginning of a sea change (as you say, social media is still fresh), and we’re all pretty sure the media landscape has been altered forever. What is the opportunity cost of sitting out? Can we afford to not have an established presence if this social media stuff goes in the direction we think it will?
And for market share: Sure, maybe we don’t have the ROI science refined, but how do we feel knowing our competitors have more of a following or a bigger footprint in the space we know our audience is hanging out in?
Can we sleep at night knowing that if the levee breaks our competitor has a ship and we’ve got a surfboard?
Andrew you nailed it, the reason to engage social media, and people and businesses should, is so that they can learn the ropes, make the mistakes, understand the protocols and powers of it, so that when those metrics do evolve, they are primed to capitalize on them!
thanks for coming by and for the comment. It is so appreciated my friend
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