Few large organizations have any idea if their social media campaigns are driving revenue. The reason — many social media metrics (e.g. number of followers) are impossible to relate to revenue.
As organizations ramp up SMM spending (expected to exceed $3 billion in 2014) they will demand revenue metrics. SSM will need to deliver revenue results on par with per-click, per-impression and cost-per-action advertising models. The spend-easy days of SSM will be over — only those who can truly deliver results will be left in the game.
Marketing Experiments
Many large organizations view Social Media Marketing as an experiment. However, with average spending growing at 60% per year marketing teams will soon be asked to show results.Nobody Wants to Socialize with a Faceless Multi-national Corporation
Smart organizations recruit competent, social employees and empower them to represent the organization in social media. However, not all companies are smart when it comes to social media.Marketing is traditionally a one-way street — marketers push out products and advertising. Feedback only comes via a occasional survey. The social nature of SMM is a challenge for many organizations. Many can think of no better approach than to try to buy followers with contests and giveaways.
Illusion of Control
It is a social media moment that happens in every company — a executive realizes that trolls are badmouthing your brand in social media. The end result is often the launch of a social media dashboard.Social media dashboards scan social media for brand mentions and report back the results. With all your brand detractors showing up in a neat little report every morning — the world seems safe again.
The problem — social media monitoring and analytics tools are expensive. However, the information they report is often difficult to action. So your brand has 10 negative mentions today — so what? Such tools only benefit companies that have an effective social media marketing strategy.
Long Live Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is unlikely to die. The hype will die — what follows will be a turbulent shake-out of the weak players in the space. The organizations who get SSM right will get to write the future of marketing.Tweet |
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