Social media came along 10 or so years ago and lit a butane-fuelled rocket under the very comfy and smug behinds of communicators everywhere. All of a sudden marketers were no longer the sole proprietors of brand and of message.
Suddenly we, The People, were free to tell the world what brands really stood for, how they really delivered (or not) on expectations, and whether they truly lived up to carefully crafted and meticulously worded promises.
Social media became the touchstone by which heaps of noble brand claims were measured. Many were (and still are) found wanting. Communicators were immeasurably surprised to find that the market was way, way cleverer than had ever been imagined.
That was more than a decade ago. And so it continues today. And while opinion espoused on social media channels makes for a hugely entertaining communication landscape, how manageable is it really? And how on earth does one measure return on investment (ROI) in terms of social media spend?
With great difficulty, is the short and easy answer.
There are myriad widgets, gadgets and tools that claim to measure social media ROI. There are as many specialist agencies that offer this service. Each will tell you why it’s better than its competitors. In this respect, social media specialists are no different from the legions of consultant agencies that were already working in a bustling industry and competing for a share of the marketing budget long before Facebook and Twitter came along.
Measuring social media ROI comes down to one thing: your social media strategy needs to set out what it wants to achieve and who it wants to talk with before it takes even a first tentative step onto a very brightly lit stage. Clever communicators know that social media is at its most efficient when it’s put to work talking with people, rather than selling them stuff.
You measure return on your social media investment not by "likes" or "follows" or whatever other little button it’s dead easy to click on. You measure return on investment by quality of conversation and by the relationships you build with individual people in your market. Why? Because sales are driven by sentiment; sentiment is driven by engagement; and "engagement" is just another word for "conversation".
It’s not an easy thing to measure, and anyone who comes into your office and tells you they have this social media ROI thing wrapped needs to be treated with the scepticism reserved for all charlatans.
Measuring social media ROI is a little bit science, a little bit data, a little bit about hitting targets, and a whole lot about gut-instinct magic. It’s this that makes it such an exciting field to work in. And it’s precisely this that makes it so well worth the brand-building investment.