Those who understand Social Media don’t talk about ROI

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It is not uncommon to see people arguing passionately about “Social Media ROI”, thanks in part to discussion on the subject in Social and Mainstream Media. Businessweek recently published an in depth piece titled Beware Social Media Snake Oil.

It is important to remember that Social Media is just a medium for connecting with people (or customers if you prefer that term). It provides necessary platform or tools to reach out to millions of people instantaneously across time-zones in a cost effective manner. But since “Social” is just a medium, it doesn’t have any ROI of its own. ROI will depend on how well this medium is used for attaining a well defined objective. So ROI is for the “usage” and not the “medium”. Many people associate ROI with the medium and that is incorrect.

See this excellent interview with Lee Odden on Social Media Marketing and ROI. According to Lee, measuring ROI as a direct result of Social Media is not the right question. Social Media is a platform, not a tactic.

Moreover, Social Networks as a medium for connecting with Customers for branding and engagement is a very new development and unlike marketing through traditional media such as Television, Print or Radio, we are yet to fully understand how Social Media marketing affects consumer behavior. To borrow famous words of former Defense Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld, we don’t know what we don’t know about how Social Media influences consumer behavior. And in the absence of this understanding, it is prudent to say that those who understand Social Media don’t talk about Social Media ROI.

Rather than trying to measure effectiveness of Social Media campaigns through ROI, it is better to use other KPIs (for a good list, see 35 social media KPIs to help measure engagement).

So beware, next time some one talks about Social Media ROI, it is very likely that person is trying to sell Social Media Snake Oil.

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