Five Things I Took Away From Brandwatch’s Social Media ROI Session
I was a panelist on Brandwatch’s Connecting social to dollars: How do you measure social media ROI session early last week where I had the privilege of discussing this often confusing topic with some industry leaders: Ted Rubin (Social Marketing Strategist, Brand Evangelist & Acting CMO Brand Innovators) Mike Alton (CMO of SiteSell) and Eric Tung (Digital Recruiting Evangelist of BMC Software).
The conversation, lead by Brandwatch’s Joel Windels, hit a number of different topics, but here are my 5 favorite takeaways from the session:
- You don’t need to know everything, just get started!
It may be hard to determine the value of social media, but there is undoubtedly tons of value in this ever-evolving medium. When it comes to determining ROI of social, managing expectations is an important determining factor. What kind of company do you have? What are your specific goals? And with that, what does ROI mean to your company?
Social media can generate positive ROI and cut costs, but there are a number of dependent factors. It’s also important to keep in mind that not every campaign is going to be a winner, but no matter the level of success, there is always something to learn. For example, any type of insight into your community and product feedback should always be looked at as a positive. Whatever it is, take this insight into your next campaign.
2. Once qualitative metrics lead, you’ll get the quantitative metrics you’re looking for. Brands aren’t built overnight.
When I refer to qualitative, I’m referring to things like social engagement, and when I refer to quantitative, I’m referring to actual end goals, like a sale, or some sort of transaction. Now that that’s cleared up, I want to reiterate that brands are not built overnight. How can you expect someone to shell out, say, $100 on your service, when they don’t even know you yet? Building relationships and a strong community will eventually lead to numerical metrics rising. As Ted Rubin stated nicely, we need to digitally look each other in the eye — build something of substance, create loyalty, and your quantitative metrics will thank you later.
3. Stories paint a stronger, clearer picture than metrics.
Often times, people think they want metrics, but really, they want stories. Mike Allton brought up a great point during the hangout. When discussing what the social media ROI on our hangout might look like to his boss, he explained that yeah, he can pull numbers of tweets and hashtag metrics, but what was the overall experience? Was the feedback positive or negative? What he and his company gained from his experience during the webinar can be much better expressed using a story than metrics.
4. Having a great brand promise doesn’t mean anything if you’re not delivering on it.
It goes back to the old adage “actions speak louder than words.” A brand can promise their users/customers everything in the world, but nothing is more important than building an honest, transparent relationship with them. Show through the actions of your brand, whether it be customer service or quality of your product, that you care about your audience, and an authentic, loyal community will grow out of that.
5. Social should be human — keep this in focus.
Social media is one of the most cost-effective ways of understanding your audience. It allows for real-time feedback, one-to-one and one-to-many communication, which ultimately humanizes you and your product/brand, In order to make social human, you need to understand the conversation that’s happening. Your communities are some of your most important relationships. Eric Tung put it nice and simply: Responding immediately on social can save relationships. Yes — What are your users pain points? Is there a current issue that needs to be dealt with? Keep it transparent and authentic. Always.
If you missed it, you can check out the Brandwatch webinar here. Thanks again to Joel for driving the convo!
