Can You Measure Roi on Social Media Marketing

Introduction

The article titled “Can You Measure the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing?” authored by Donna L. Hoffman and Marek Fodor explains the need for mangers to us different techniques to measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media campaigns. The authors posit that instead of focusing on traditional methods of measuring ROI, namely measuring the cost of launching a social media campaign and then quantifying how much sales the campaign promoted, mangers should considered other novel and subtle approaches for measuring the return on investments.

The authors in the article mention that instead of taking a traditional narrow approach of measuring ROI, that managers should leverage the experience that the social media provides the customer. After all, it is the customer who is charge of his interaction with the social media forum, whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or other blog sites, however, managers should provide some degree of frame work to exercise some control on how customers interact with their social media campaign. The interaction can be measured in terms of brand awareness, brand engagement and word of mouth. The article provides guidelines for strategic social media measurements. It also mentions that the social media environment is a dynamic place and that social media campaigns should be conceived in the context of what the authors term the 4cs- connections, creation, consumption and control- which correspond to the customer needs in terms of his interactions with the social media environment

Managerial Application

The authors also warn managers that traditional approaches of measuring the ROI represent a narrow focus in their part. “Mangers feel pressure to emphasize traditional objectives such as direct sales, direct cost reductions or increases in market share” (Hoffman & Fodor, Fall 2010 ). Managers should realize that the customer is the one that is in control of the social media experience and should “begin to consider the...