DISQUS

Jacques Seoman · 1 year ago

ROI is the traditional parameter used to gauge efficacy of a campaign or promo. Social media engagement is a brand building exercise that steps outside the traditional parameters, so is difficult to gauge, yet if your campaign goes viral, you'll know all about it!

Karl Havard · 1 year ago

Joe, I'm really pleased you liked my post on econsultancy. Thanks to your article it has received quite a lot of coverage.

I think the ROI discussion will rage on and on, especially during the global economic downturn we are all experiencing. I am actually starting to have fairly heated discussions with clients around this subject, and have come to the conclusion that if they don't "get it" why should I spend my time trying to convince them. There are plenty of other brands out there who are willing to have a go and use such metrics as followers, views, group members, fans, etc. As Jacques states, the viral element is a very good gauge.

I'm currently looking at the psyche of the blogger i.e. Why do bloggers blog? and relating this to Maslow. It's throwing up some interesting stuff, and I hope to have a post up in econsultancy in a couple of weeks if that is of interest. It will be quite an ironic post!

Ken @ Money From Home Blog · 1 year ago

Customer comes first...it should always be about what interesting to the customer and about what they want. Give them that and they'll remember your brand.

Vlad · 1 year ago

Of courrse the costomer is always right, if you are realy trying to satisfy your customers they'll come back to you again and again

Jason Kuiper · 1 year ago

Priority #1 is definately the customer.

joehall · 1 year ago

@Karl

Thanks for stopping by. As far as the ROI discussion. I think that what could help allot of folks that sell SMM services is if they talk about SMM to their clients in a way that minimizes the need for an SMM ROI. For example, I never sell SMM as a stand alone service, instead I like to talk about it as a complimentary aspect of internet marketing in general. When I do this, its easier to mix in SMM bench marks with traditional ROI when it comes time to submit reports. This way the client views the ROI of the entire campaign with the SMM benchmarks as an integral aspect.

Looking forward to your next post!

Joe Hall's last blog post..Backlink Analysis Made Simple and Fun!

Goran Web Design · 1 year ago

The most difficult thing on this list has to be forgetting ROI.. It's hard to be unable to measure your returns and just place faith in the fact that those returns are substantial and worthwhile.

PS3 · 1 year ago

Real conversations in real media takes a huge amount of resource in people time though Karl, isn't that going to be prohibitively expensive for a lot of companies?

Nicole Price · 1 year ago

The discussion on ROI is fascinating and I cannot wait to get to Karl's why do bloggers blog. In the meanwhile however, the issue is that a lot of marketing brains cannot accept not considering ROI on any kind of promotional expenditure. The trick is in convincing them.

Nicole Price's last blog post..Offbeat Gift Ideas

Karl Havard · 1 year ago

@PS3. I believe it does take time, and if quality time is devoted to a solid social media strategy the results will be delivered. But of course, time usually means resource and that means money...catch 22.

So the whole ROI discussion is a challenging one. I think Joe is spot on. Treating social media in isolation and trying to justify the ROIagainst this on its own, leads to a depressing conversation. It can't be done. However, bringing it into context and looking at the improvement social media can make on Natural and Paid Search visibility and click thru's; as well as direct referrals from social media (and I'm going to include Online PR in the mix as well)then a return of some sort begins to take shape. But...it's still not perfect.

Karl Havard's last blog post..Brand Engagement through Social Media: Top 10 Tips

Karl Havard · 1 year ago

@ Joe

The ROI element for social media seemed to be an area of interest...so I put some ideas around this on the econsultancy blog. It would be good to get your feedback, and again I hope it can help anyone who cares to read it. Thanks.

http://www.e-consultancy.com/news-blog/366889/s...

Karl Havard's last blog post..Brand Engagement through Social Media: Top 10 Tips

Mike · 1 year ago

Good stuff!

http://www.torrenthub.org

edhardy · 1 year ago

thanks for sharing!
thanks for sharing!ed_hardy

thinkflick · 1 year ago

I'm agree with Karl point that "Be Social" I have seen lots of people spamming in social media and get banned immediately.