Social Media – the Debate Continues

by Charlene Brisson, MAPC
Marketing & Communication Specialist, @charlenebrisson

Vancouver, BC – December 15th – What an opportunity it was to attend the Dec 9th IIMA session Social Media: Where’s the ROI! Return on Investment is the holy grail of social media (SM) that marketers are seeking to produce immediately successful campaigns. Proof of time and money spent is critical to show clients and bosses that SM marketing efforts aren’t merely the exploits of fantasy, but will actually lead to customer acquisition.

The full house at the event followed up by an active Q&A provides further proof that the topic is hot and marketers want to know more. Presenters Darren Barefoot, (@dbarefoot) of Capulet Communications, Warren Sukernek, (@warrenss) of Lift9 and Stephen Smith (@Webnames) of Webnames.ca did an excellent job presenting their differing opinions on tracking SM ROI. All agreed that marketers should be very clear on objectives, desired outcomes and metrics before they start their campaigns. As Stephen Smith noted, “one prescription doesn’t suit everyone” and even social media may not be the tool for every company to engage in. Fans and followers fit the culture of some companies more than others.

The disagreement of social media ROI continues. Warren Sukernek and Darren Barefoot have differing opinions, like many others, on how social media should and can be tracked. While Warren presented some concrete examples of measurable success. Darren is more on the side of traditional marketers who recognize that marketing can often be an “an act of faith.” He posted a page of his notes on http://tinyurl.com/y8edbx3

Darren’s experience (and mine too) has shown that social media works much better as one component of an integrated campaign, rather than the only component. It’s advantageous for a prospect to see an ad on a bus and then see you on Facebook. Darren, author of Friends with Benefits, sees SM as providing a lot of the same results as PR – much of which cannot be measured. He cites Fresh Books as a good example. They sent a box of Triscuits to Fiji and got a lot of PR (http://tinyurl.com/y9mskq8). But can it be measured? No. “Some things just can’t be measured”, but that doesn’t mean they have no value. Darren’s hard metrics show that FB works well when trying to change minds; Twitter converts low at about the same rate as newsletters – same as Youtube. Stumbleupon and like social media sites convert really poorly.

His hierarchy of conversion falls out in this order …
1. Paid Search
2. Blogs and Articles
3. Media Coverage
4. YouTube
5. Facebook
6. Twitter
7. SEO – Organic Search
8. All others like Stumbleupon

Warren Sukernek used Twitter to find a job in early 2009 (http://tinyurl.com/ybnyjvs) . He suggests that “if you can’t measure your campaign, step back and find out why.” Here’s three examples he provided of how powerful Twitter can be:

1. Del has sold $6.5M in obsolete goods http://tinyurl.com/ye46qxv
2. Comcast has resolved 500,000 customer service calls http://tinyurl.com/ykw4y4q
3. Over a single weekend, moms forced Johnson & Johnson to pull millions of dollars in Motrin ads http://tinyurl.com/5mbyr
4. Here’s the ad they raged against http://tinyurl.com/5pa93n

Warren also shared a useful SM spreadsheet tracking tool posted on the IIMA membership site. The gist is to identify 10 keywords, give them each a dollar value, and count how many times they appear in your social media efforts. At least you’ll have something to show clients and the boss. Admittedly, the value of course, is no more concrete than the value you’re given for every time your logo shows up in a newspaper ad with 10 other logos. Warren did recommend that the most reliable means of tracking social media is to use salesforce.com on the front end and Web Trends from Radiant6 on the back end to do the analysis.

Through the Q&A, all presenters agreed that the tracking discussed is all primarily done using tools like Google analytics. All-in-all attendees walked away with some valuable insights and a few good tools … and still … the debate of social media ROI continues.

Best Event Tip: Make clever Google Maps – add photos and videos. Why: It’s a big secret. Provided by: Darren Barefoot.

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