Is your social media investment worth it?

I recently saw an interesting presentation on the basics of social media by Olivier Blanchard. Personally, I think the framework and approach is really valuable in order to understand the basics of ROI on any marketing program in general.

Quite simply, it is the distinction between non-financial and financial ROI. Even though your social media campaign achieves high click-throughs, visits, online conversations, this does not necessarily imply conversion into sales. This is the same principle as advertising - I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that awareness means nothing if it doesn't convert consumers through the funnel (both in the short and long term). This throws up the question of whether what we should really be measuring is the salience and relevance of the advertising?

Blanchard's presentation is great to have a quick browse through. It tries to make the point that establishing a base line measure of sales/ profits is a great starting point for any ROI measurement program i.e. comparing the baseline level of sales with the lift in sales achieved during the period when these social media activities were engaged in.

However, I think this might be too simplistic, as the lift in sales may not be attributable to the social media alone. Also, not everything is meant to impact in the short term. By definition, brand building is long term, and I think social media is a long term channel. Consumers engage with social media to have conversations and be heard, and not primarily to buy brands. Brand building is the result of these conversations and interactions.

Anyway, I will leave you to enjoy this presentation for now.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi