B2B Web Strategy Blog – eMagine

Measuring social media ROI: it’s not a slam dunk for B2Bs

January 12th, 2010 Posted by: Bill Gadless

There’s been a fair amount of e-ink spilled over how to measure social media results …some of it in fact on this very blog.  Mostly, what you see is exhortations to measure attributes or variables that are readily measurable within the structure of social media:  things like followers, mentions, responses, reach, influence.  Perceptive readers, though, will readily see this as a classic example of assuming the conclusion:  i.e., I “know” that getting lots of Twitter followers and mentions will have a positive effect on my business;  hence, I can measure our social media effectiveness by simply measuring those things.

This leaves open the question of how did you “know” that those inputs had anything to do with your business results, because you didn’t actually measure it end to end;  and if that question comes from your CEO or a Board member, it could be quite embarrassing.  Fortunately, you can cite studies showing that companies active in social media generate more revenue than their less social counterparts …but of course that says nothing about your company in particular.

Guest-posting on business.com’s B2B Online Marketing blog, Tom Pick points out that measuring a true ROI for social media programs – in the way that marketers are used to doing for, say, PPC advertising – presents a number of difficult challenges for B2Bs…

• Wrong vehicle?  Social media is more about PR, and much less about direct-response marketing.  It can increase name recognition and credibility, enhance branding, help establish relationships with influential voices in your industry and strengthen customer relationships …all certainly good things.  But attempting to use it for blatant product promotion or direct response is very likely to backfire.
• Last-click attribution.  That customer you attribute to coming to you through AdWords, or Twitter, or a Facebook ad, most likely saw your name in any number of places before they made that last click.  Can you really say that it was that killer tweet or Facebook ad that finally pushed her over the edge?
• “Influencing the influencers” is probably a better use for B2B social media than reaching buyers directly.  Those consultants, industry analysts, journalists, bloggers and others who follow you on Twitter will never buy your product or service, but can very definitely influence buying decisions in your market.  But again, there’s no real way to attribute any given sale to your social-media efforts with these influencers.

Tom sums up:  “While social media can certainly play an important role in demand generation (along with advertising, PR and other activities), the complexity of B2B buying processes makes its precise impact difficult to gauge.”  It’s not clear how this will change …ever, much less in the near term;  so it’s probably best to keep the focus on the undeniable market-conditioning capabilities of social media, and avoid setting any expectation that its demand-generating effects will be precisely measurable in the manner we’ve grown accustomed to with PPC.

Entry Filed under: B2B Web Strategy