Demonstrating the return on investment, or ROI, for social media is a challenge every marketer faces. But Scot Wheeler, Marketing Science Director, and Shaina Boone, VP of Marketing Science at Critical Mass, question whether ROI is what your senior management really wants to know.
ROI has almost become synonymous with value. So is your CEO interested in the value of social media or the actual ROI? It really depends on what they are willing to put into it in terms of time and budget. If they truly are interested in the ROI, Critical Mass says there are three secrets to success:
1. You have to have clearly defined business, marketing and consumer objectives
2. You need adoption, belief and trust in your objectives
3. You need to set targets and goals for your objective
Trying to measure ROI without clear objectives already set is quite literally a crapshoot. Instead, use your first six months to a year on social media to monitor activity and set benchmarks. This will help you estimate the returns you should expect moving forward.
As websites became more ubiquitous and necessary, people didn’t worry about proving their ROI. Critical Mass hopes that as social media becomes a more mature channel, the same thing will occur. If that doesn’t happen, Shaina jokes, you can easily talk someone out of wanting to know the ROI by showing them the process to find it.
