Title: Social Media Excites Marketers, but Doesn’t Yet Generate Revenue
Source: Marketing Charts (484 words)
URL: http://goo.gl/0zPUa
Focus Area: Marketing, social media, measurement, performance
For whom: Marketing, C-level executives, profit stake holders
Synopsis: Marketers are very passionate about social media. According to a survey involving Adobe it is the most exciting marketing opportunity ahead of even mobile and conversion rate optimization. In a nutshell a quote from the story sums up a rather disturbing reality
“Although social media marketing clearly is both a priority and a stimulating topic, marketers paint a less encouraging picture about its effectiveness as a revenue-generating channel.”
Marketers are focusing on engagement over hard analytics which begins to sound an awful lot like the “we advertise on TV to get eyeballs” mentality that has given marketing a reputation of being soft in terms of measuring total revenue generated from marketing efforts and ROI.
So what?: Everyone in business has to be aware of all of the hype that surrounds social media. It is intense and steady but it is often created by those who can benefit from it as well: consultants and “experts”.
Social media has its place. It can be effective but you should not let the measurement of its performance be limited to engagement metrics including number of followers on Twitter and number of Likes on Facebook. These are generally quantity v. quality measurements and can be deceiving.
Are you currently engaged in social media efforts? Can you tie these efforts back to revenue? If yes, can you do more to further associate social media with additional revenue? If no, what are the current resources being used to run the social media efforts? Do these resources cost you more than the social media efforts are generating? Do not go into social media with a milquetoast attitude on its measurement. You will end up losing in the end.
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