Why brands not sure of social marketing’s value

Social media gets a lot of discussion and even a lot of participation from marketers, but in most cases budgets remain low. One reason for the reluctance to invest more is the old problem of ROI. While some marketers have created successful social media campaigns that they feel they can measure and determine a benefit from, many have still not solved the social success equation.

A September 2010 survey by Econsultancy, sponsored by digital marketing agency bigmouthmedia, found nearly half of companies worldwide still said “the jury is out” on the value of social media for their firm. This group still felt they were not able to measure the return on their social media investment—even to put a value on it relative to their other marketing activities.



Other research has also shown analytics and ROI are the single biggest problem in the way of social efforts.

Econsultancy’s report also suggested integration with many other marketing channels was lacking. While the vast majority of companies had managed to integrate email and social media, search engine optimization was the only other marketing channel that came close in integration efforts. This could be because social media efforts often naturally help search ones.

Research from several other sources, including eROI and StrongMail, indicates large majorities of email marketers have incorporated social elements in their campaigns, sometimes in sophisticated ways. Other digital marketers must similarly find ways to make social a natural fit with their own marketing channels rather than keeping it siloed for greater effectiveness.

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