You will hardly find a day that goes by without you reading or hearing about social media or social marketing. These terms are often used, so you should define them first.
In the 1970s, social marketing “was born” as a new discipline. In 1971, Philip Kotler and Gerald Zaltman of Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University used the term “social marketing” to describe the application of commercial marketing principles to issues of health, quality of life, and social concerns.
Social marketing is defined as “the attempt to influence social behavior not for the benefit of the marketer but for the benefit of the target audience and society in general.” It uses the value consumers/customers share and the brand/manufacturer. It creates a two-way link of communication between the brand and the customer.
Social media is a new term for a discipline that companies initially developed to capitalize on marketing techniques. It has since evolved to be a comprehensive and integrated discipline that uses a variety of technologies, including traditional media as well as the latest in digital media.
Social media are primarily Internet tools that allow you to share and discuss information. Examples include viral videos, blogs, and online reviews.
Social media leverages relationships and networks. Your Website informs customers and visitors about your business and products, and you can use the Internet to increase your reach with things like pay-per-click, webcasts, and search. It is a complement to other online and offline marketing initiatives.
It’s only natural that as more companies invest in social media and marketing, it is important to measure the return on investment. Marketing and social media do not replace other media. Just as radio did not replace newspapers and television did not replace radio. Rather, social media is another part of your multichannel marketing efforts.
Online social media is no different. First, you need to identify your target audience. The second step is to develop relevant and consistent messaging. Content is the king of social media, just as it is with any other online campaign.
The same problem exists with marketing and social media today: people’s attention spans and their ability to be distracted are very short. As with any effort, one strike might not be enough. You need to use social media consistently and over time if you want to get the most out of it.
You can only measure the impact of social media efforts after you have determined the business outcomes it supports and set performance-based goals. As an example, you could set objectives such as increasing the number of customers who try your product, increasing brand loyalty and advocacy, or increasing market share. Each of these goals should be linked to a specific business outcome. As an example, increasing the number of customers who try your product or increase their share of preference could be linked to business outcomes such as acquiring new clients or increasing the rate of acquisition of customers to influence revenue and market shares.
You will choose the metrics for your social media after determining what your business goal is and how social media can support your marketing objective. As with any other communication channel, it is important to have a framework for measuring the effectiveness of your social media.
A possible approach would be to measure social media using the same framework as you do for Public Relations. This includes outputs, business results, and outcomes. Why use a framework that is similar to the one used in PR? You can compare the two, PR and social media.
Public relations is the art of trying to positively influence the perceptions and attitudes of a target audience, primarily by means of endorsements (published reports, articles, reviews, etc.). Third parties who are objective, trustworthy, and credible. Social media doesn’t stray far from this concept when you consider it is designed to impact engagement and influence via the participation and interactivity of third-party communities and networks. Both rely on third-party networks and communities that are perceived as trustworthy. You have little control over them.
How can you use the framework to measure business outcomes, outputs, and results? Let’s first define each category because they measure something different.
Outputs measure effectiveness and efficiency. For example, whether a campaign is cost-effective in terms of how many positive reviews are produced by community influencers or the number of people who participate in a discussion in a blog on a subject related to your industry that includes positive mentions about your company and product.
Outcomes measure changes, preferably behavioral, resulting from the program/campaign/activity. This could be the change in the amount of positive reviews received by your newly launched product.
Business Results Measure how the program or campaign helped an organization reach a business goal. You can measure, for example, how the market is adopting your new product. This will show you the increase in sales as a direct result of social media.
The better you are able to measure social media quantitatively, the more effective it will be. Even better, the closer these measurements are to actual business outcomes. You can measure how quickly people respond to you, such as by writing a review or participating in a blog discussion.
You want to know if the social media campaigns are having an incremental impact and, if so, how much. This will allow you to assess your return on investment. Keep in mind the result, like an increase in “trailers” of your product to increase qualified leads and increase the number of “buyers.”
Even if social media has a positive return on investment in terms of the specific metrics, if you do not see measurable results for your business, then it’s likely that you should revisit the effort.