Social Media Marketing’s Dreaded “M”: Measurement

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of hosting another unfiltered lunch event here in Boston with a fabulous group of marketers all seeking insight into the most dreaded “M” of social media marketing: measurement. Personally, I roll my eyes every time I hear the claim made that you can’t or shouldn’t measure social media. You can measure anything. A-NY-THING. It may not be easy and it may not be straightforward; you may not have direct access to the data that you need, and the data that you do have may need slicing, dicing, or manipulating of some sort, but you can do it. Period.

Which perhaps is why the dialogue we had over lunch was less about whether or not we can prove positive ROI on our social media marketing investments, but rather on what it is we actually hope to accomplish through this [not-so-]new[-anymore] channel.

Here are a few highlights worth sharing:

1. Social media is like the telephone once was to businesses.

You can use it for outbound sales or inbound customer service. You can just listen or you can just talk – but the best conversations are two-way or multi-way.

When people first began investing in telephones for their businesses, they did so to a large extent because everyone else did (ditto for the first company websites), though they didn’t fully understand why they needed it nor how they’d use it best. And they certainly didn’t have a clue how to measure its impact on their bottom line.

2. The lines between advertising, branding, marketing, public relations, and sales are becoming increasingly blurred – hence the measurement confusion.

Maybe it’s just me, but… isn’t Marketing responsible for creating awareness, interest, and desire, while the folks over in Sales are the ones responsible for actually closing the sale? Somewhere along the way, the lines between these similar yet unique disciplines have become so blurred that we’re not sure whom to hold accountable for which part of the sales process – so by default we began to expect everyone to have a direct, immediately measurable impact on the bottom line.

Perhaps as the dust settles on the social media revolution and we all stop standing around like deer caught in headlights, we’ll realign expectations, look at the bigger picture—and stop using so many damn metaphors. (Oh wait, is that just me? Hah.)

3. As befuddled as we are about how to measure social media marketing effectively, we’re even more miffed by what it is we expect social media to do for our organizations.

Is social media a tool for generating publicity and promoting our brands, products, and services? Is it a snazzy new customer service tool? Is it best applied for cost-effective consumer research? Loyalty-building? Brand awareness? All of the above?

And if so, what are the metrics that map to that?

Well, we didn’t succeed in coming up with universal solutions to all of these questions over lunch, but we had a fascinating discussion. Flip through the document below to see some of the insights that were unveiled during the course of the event – and then share your side of the story.

What are you measuring – and why? What are your thoughts on the three insights and issues we discussed?

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