Hill+Knowlton Strategies

Interestingly this subject came up when a few colleagues of mine and I were discussing social media monitoring and the true value it offers our clients. A concern was raised, that questioned the true value of engaging in social media and the impact it has on ROI. Apparently, some of our clients are not convinced that social media is a necessity and somehow we need to prove that it is…

Then I came across this blog post from eConsultancy that discusses this exact question with the final comment from Convince&Convert’s Jay Baer , “Despite the constant bleating everywhere about the need to map precise ROI to social media, two-thirds of respondents to this large study feel measuring social media is less than critical.” How interesting… in fact rather amusing. Here we are banging our heads on how to show value (even though we can measure every click, view and level of engagement consumers have across most social media channels) and some brands are in fact saying that it’s not crucial; they’re just doing it!

First Direct is a great example of this by incorporating tweets from customers as a live feed, regardless of sentiment – very risqué for most I dare say! And not to mention the rise of new platforms such as foursquare and Gowalla, which hardly have a base in the UK and brands are already knocking on their doors.

So what do you say – do you think we’re being swept along by a phenomenon that goes against the grain of traditional marketing practices, where everything was about ROI but now seems to be more about looking good than doing good? It also has a slight taste of a decade ago when the value of PR was questioned, that hasn’t been resolved and yet here we are evolving.

I don’t know if I have the answer, and to be honest will keep on searching, which reminds me that I have several “social media measuring events” to go to where we will discuss the same thing and come out with the same conclusion – we don’t know.