Can You Define the ROI of Social?
By: Lindsay Bell
Recently, a grand old brand set about to reinvent itself. Not only did they invest in an extremely creative and winking’ly tongue in cheek advertising campaign, they more than firmly embraced social media. In fact they gave it a big ol’ bear hug! And guess what? They saw remarkable results. Their Twitter followers increased by an astounding 2700%. There was an 800% increase in Facebook fan page visits, 300% increase in traffic to the brand website and countless YouTube parodies. Most importantly sales of its body wash more than doubled! Of course, we’re talking about Old Spice, and yes, in this case, that elusive social media ROI was clearly visible.
Old Spice had always been ‘your dad’s brand’, and while their reinvention was – and still is – a great marketing success story, most companies will not be able to gauge their social media ROI quite so clearly. Social media is all about relationships, and relationships take time to build. It is, quite simply, organic. And while marketers are faced with clients who want to see immediate results – and to be fair it’s their cold hard cash that’s at stake – social media strategy and engagement has to be approached with long-term thinking. Asking a corporation to go quietly into that good night is understandably a daunting proposition.
So how does one define the ROI of social? Is it through increased site traffic and fan page numbers? Or reduced returns and call center volume? At Social 2011’s panel Can You Define the ROI of Social? we are going to let the experts do the talking. Joseph Thornley, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Thornley Fallis; Marshall Sponder, Analytics Associate, WCG; KD Paine, Chief Executive Officer, KD Paine and Partners; and Ken Burbary, Vice President Group Director, Strategy & Analysis, Digitas are going to look at how to manage social expectations, whether ROI is actually what you’re looking for, and, bottom line, if you really can measure and define the ROI of social media engagement?
The truth is that tracking whether your increase in Twitter followers or that spike in your brand’s Facebook fan numbers is having a direct impact on your bottom line is difficult. But remember, there are many ways to measure success. A well run – and well staffed – social media campaign will create passionate product users and fiercely loyal brand advocates who feel respected and valued by your company. And that, my friends, is priceless.
What do you think? What do you consider when measuring your social ROI? Is it even possible to define and measure the returns of a social media strategy? Do you have any questions or comments for our panelists? As always, we love hearing from you.
Caveat: While actor Isaiah Mustafa, “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” from the above mentioned Old Spice ad campaign, is one of our keynote speakers at Social 2011, that is not why we used the campaign in this post. We used it because it’s an awesome example of a super successful social media campaign!
All of our guest panelists are thought leaders in their respective fields. For more from Joseph Thornley, visit ProPR; Marshall Sponder can be found at Webmetricsguru.com; KD Paine’s PR Measurement blog is at kdpaine.blogs.com, and read Ken Burbary’s thoughts on web business at kenburbary.com.
Tags: Old Spice, Radian6 Social 2011, Social Media, social media ROI
I believe the real challenge to define success from a CRM perspective in social media is how quickly and efficiently a brand or company can respond to issues/suggestions their community brings up. @replies and likes are definite ways to measure activity on a brand, but the real value is the quality of reaction and response to their end user.
Imagine if we had the power of social media when Coca-Cola decided to switch to the new Coke in the mid 80's? Their response took 3 months to switch back to a "classic" variation of Coca-Cola, and was an impressive response back then without the tools we have now. Today the value of a response within minutes is indispensable, and the scope of brand to consumer interaction is exponentially greater. If brands aren't using the tools they have today at their disposal the best way they possibly can, their competitors will.
Traditional focus groups are a thing of the past; bring on the Focus Swarm! (can I coin that?)
I believe the real challenge to define success from a CRM perspective in social media is how quickly and efficiently a brand or company can respond to issues/suggestions their community brings up. @replies and likes are definite ways to measure activity on a brand, but the real value is the quality of reaction and response to their end user.
Imagine if we had the power of social media when Coca-Cola decided to switch to the new Coke in the mid 80's? Their response took 3 months to switch back to a "classic" variation of Coca-Cola, and was an impressive response back then without the tools we have now. Today the value of a response within minutes is indispensable, and the scope of brand to consumer interaction is exponentially greater. If brands aren't using the tools they have today at their disposal the best way they possibly can, their competitors will.
Traditional focus groups are a thing of the past; bring on the Focus Swarm! (can I coin that?)
Insightful post Lindsay. You make some great, salient points – e.g. that social media, from a marketing perspective, is all about organically planting seeds then "watering" them by continually sharing helpful insights, humanizing your brand through conversation and providing customer support etc., which fosters relationships and brand awareness. Another strong point you make is that there are many ways to measure success. But after this, as we all know, it can get tricky.
So, in terms of defining the ROI of social, I think you can measure it as long as you start from the mindset that you outlined above. For example, a social initiative with the goals, after 6 months say, of engagement > brand activity & an increasingly growing community/audience (reinforcing the business objectives of community development and brand awareness), can be measured by the # of @ replies and likes to brand tweets and Facebook wall posts and by the increase of connections on social networks all compared to your benchmarks. The difficult part is placing a value on an active and growing community of brand advocates. But this goes back to what social is all about – relationships. And as humans, we all know relationships make the world livable and enjoyable ( see David Brooks' new book: http://amzn.to/socialanimalbrooks).
The key I think is to also remember that exact numbers are not what you are looking for but the changes in trends over time.
Insightful post Lindsay. You make some great, salient points – e.g. that social media, from a marketing perspective, is all about organically planting seeds then "watering" them by continually sharing helpful insights, humanizing your brand through conversation and providing customer support etc., which fosters relationships and brand awareness. Another strong point you make is that there are many ways to measure success. But after this, as we all know, it can get tricky.
So, in terms of defining the ROI of social, I think you can measure it as long as you start from the mindset that you outlined above. For example, a social initiative with the goals, after 6 months say, of engagement > brand activity & an increasingly growing community/audience (reinforcing the business objectives of community development and brand awareness), can be measured by the # of @ replies and likes to brand tweets and Facebook wall posts and by the increase of connections on social networks all compared to your benchmarks. The difficult part is placing a value on an active and growing community of brand advocates. But this goes back to what social is all about – relationships. And as humans, we all know relationships make the world livable and enjoyable ( see David Brooks' new book: http://amzn.to/socialanimalbrooks).
The key I think is to also remember that exact numbers are not what you are looking for but the changes in trends over time.
Thanks for all of your wonderfully intelligent and thought provoking responses! If I weren't battling the plague at the moment, I would be all fired up and providing (relatively) intelligent responses back. As it stands, today I can barely string a sentence together. I'm glad you enjoyed the post, and wanted to say I enjoyed reading the comments as well.
No problem Lindsay. Feel better!
What a very insightful thoughts about ROI..