I wouldn't have missed yesterday's N2 social media hub for anything. Hot topic of the day was measuring social media to which I have been eagerly focusing the past two years. As a business it's new and evolving, but in everyday life an area where marketer needs to know one's stuff. Experts giving insights over the subject included Jari Jaanto representing both IRC-Galleria and IAB Finland, CEO Tommi Lehtonen from Whitevector & Digital Marketing Manager Jussi-Pekka Erkkola from Nokia.
When it comes to marketing and social media, the leading question is whether you can measure ROI for your campaign. Can traditional thinking of reach, frequency and return on investment work fully in the complex net of attitudes, motivations, associations, relationships, feelings and behavior? All of the speakers gave supporting answers but noted that it really depends on the product and whether its consumers are in social media. There is no winning formula that fits all but rather the success in social media should always be compared to firm's own business goals and past performance. What is our goal in raising awareness, discussion and sharing? Are we stimulating the viewers or engaging participants? What are our long term social media goals and how are they integrated to overall marketing strategy?
Another challenge with social media, in addition to accountability, is that there are so many metrics to choose from yet only some of them fit the specific needs of the firm, campaign or the uniqueness of one social medium. The time span is also important as usually campaigns and trends follow the long tail. The beauty of social media monitoring, however, is that you can follow the phases and act upon them. Even though consistency is the key in both monitoring and measuring, the ultimate advantage is that you act upon it whether it's customer support, brand management, changing your campaign core theme or observing weak signals. And acting requires understanding the qualitative side behind the numbers.
Ultimately you're not measuring social media per se but your customers behaving and socializing within it. We all can jump around for skyrocketing sums of consumer responses but rarely have time to explore what explains the change and what does it mean for our strategy. Thus in addition to money talk, successful social media marketing should be measured also in terms of consumer behavior as Hoffman and Fodor point out. Social media marketing should aim to satisfy customers' needs to connect, create, consume and control. And in measuring marketers ought to know how to read the numbers behavior wise.
Overall the evening gave good insights from different angles from practical customer approach to the one of monitoring tool provider and finally to measurement standard development in the field. Let's stay tuned!
Finnish readers pls check the presentations here.
When it comes to marketing and social media, the leading question is whether you can measure ROI for your campaign. Can traditional thinking of reach, frequency and return on investment work fully in the complex net of attitudes, motivations, associations, relationships, feelings and behavior? All of the speakers gave supporting answers but noted that it really depends on the product and whether its consumers are in social media. There is no winning formula that fits all but rather the success in social media should always be compared to firm's own business goals and past performance. What is our goal in raising awareness, discussion and sharing? Are we stimulating the viewers or engaging participants? What are our long term social media goals and how are they integrated to overall marketing strategy?
Another challenge with social media, in addition to accountability, is that there are so many metrics to choose from yet only some of them fit the specific needs of the firm, campaign or the uniqueness of one social medium. The time span is also important as usually campaigns and trends follow the long tail. The beauty of social media monitoring, however, is that you can follow the phases and act upon them. Even though consistency is the key in both monitoring and measuring, the ultimate advantage is that you act upon it whether it's customer support, brand management, changing your campaign core theme or observing weak signals. And acting requires understanding the qualitative side behind the numbers.
Ultimately you're not measuring social media per se but your customers behaving and socializing within it. We all can jump around for skyrocketing sums of consumer responses but rarely have time to explore what explains the change and what does it mean for our strategy. Thus in addition to money talk, successful social media marketing should be measured also in terms of consumer behavior as Hoffman and Fodor point out. Social media marketing should aim to satisfy customers' needs to connect, create, consume and control. And in measuring marketers ought to know how to read the numbers behavior wise.
Overall the evening gave good insights from different angles from practical customer approach to the one of monitoring tool provider and finally to measurement standard development in the field. Let's stay tuned!
Finnish readers pls check the presentations here.
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