Percent of Professionals Who Measure ROI

Measuring Return on Social Investment

Managers rely on ROI to measure the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and initiatives.  When calculating ROI, marketers must not forget about their beloved social media campaigns.

Wikipedia defines social media as media designed to be disseminated through social interaction and created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques.  Though social media marketing is scalable, according to a survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, fewer than one in five marketers measured social media ROI in 2009.  “Marketers believe that measuring true ROI for social media is difficult” said Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO.  “There are so many metrics available that it is difficult to choose which ones are the most important.  In addition, marketers do not start with clear objectives for using social media.”

Marketers should define their marketing goals and connect them to social media objectives.  Three steps can aid in the process; 1) identify marketing objectives; 2) choose measurement categories that match those objectives; and 3) track those metrics in the technologies they are using.

As more marketers measure social media campaigns, ROI, the true value of platforms that can effectively build brand loyalty will come to be known.