2012 state of social media marketing: social media measurement, objectives, and budget implications

7/28/2019 2012 State of Social Media Marketing: Social Media Measurement, Objectives, and Budget Implications

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2012 State of Social Media Marketing:Social Media Measurement, Objectives,

and Budget Implications

Sponsored by


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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 2

May 2, 2012

Dear Fellow Marketer,

Theres a clear disconnect between the perceived value marketers get from social media and their

ability to demonstrate and act on that value, but it doesnt have to be that way.

To prove it, Lithium teamed up with MarketingProfs to delve more thoroughly into the issue of

social media marketing ROI, surveying over 450 marketers around how they use social media and

what exactly they realize from their efforts. What we found were sometimes subtle and sometimes

significant differences in the ways in which marketers approach measurement in the first place,and that the approach made all the difference.

Marketers who have graduated from counting social KPIs (like fans and followers) to measuring

real business outcomes (like driving word of mouth marketing and accelerating innovation) are

those that drive the most impressive ROI. More experienced marketers who focus on long-term

strategic goals such as community building and increasing brand awareness are unlocking the full

potential of social media and struggling less with demonstrating ROI than their less experienced

cohorts.

But we already knew that. We knew it from our nearly 10 years of experience working with todays

top social brands like AT&T, Best Buy, Sephora. Lithiums Social Customer Experience suite

enables marketers to unlock the full potential of working with their social customers. Our SaaS-based software helps companies listen comprehensively to their social customers, engage with

them, grow brand advocacy, harness their ideas for product innovationsand measure ROI in real

dollar terms against real business objectives.

A special thanks to MarketingProfs for helping us to test our theory and prove it correct. Social

media marketing ROI need not be so elusive for so many. Leading-edge technology plus a mature,

strategic approach to social media marketing puts us squarely on the path to nailing social media

marketing ROI.

Enjoy the report!

Sincerely,

Katy Keim, Lithium Chief Marketing Officer


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Executive Summary

In just two years, the focus of social media marketing has shifted significantly from mere

participation to driving value and convincing management that social media initiatives

are having a meaningful impact on the overall business. Now, with its prominent

role in the marketing arsenal, social media is charged with a greater responsibility in

demonstrating how it contributes to the bottom line. Marketers have quickly turned

to ROI as the equalizing metric, however, an over-emphasis on ROI has led some

marketers to implement hard sell tactics that do not resonate well in social mediaenvironments. Understanding the role of social media in the marketing funnel as a

driving of brand awareness will help marketers address the measurement gap that

has emerged between managements expectations and marketers ability to measure

against those expectations.

This report explores these issues in order to bring clarity to the relationship between

social medias objectives (e.g., brand awareness) and the desired metrics (e.g., ROI), as

well as how integration with other marketing channelswith more well-established and

direct metrics (e.g., search, company website and email)will bridge the disconnect

When social media marketers can effectively track the success of their programs through

cross-channel integration using metrics that resonate with the companys C-suite, theycan demonstrate the true success of their programs and improve the investment in

their social media initiatives.


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Section 2: Defining the Objective

The Social Media Marketing Funnel

Marketers often have multiple objectives for their social

media programs. When evaluating these common objec-

tives, it turns out that they correspond with the stages of atypical sales funnel. Starting at the top of the funnel, 91%

of marketers list brand awareness as one of the core

objectives of their social media program. The percentage

of marketers targeting objectives related to downstream

activities, including increasing purchase consideration

(57%), driving direct sales online (46%) and offline (33%)

and driving CRM activities (31%), decreases as we move

further down the sales funnel.

In addition to the fact 91% of marketers cite brand aware-

ness as one of the objectives of their social media pro-

grams, 66% cite increasing positive mentions of theirbrand online as one of the objectives. This supplements

the larger goal of brand awareness, since personal recom-

mendations from a trusted network of friends and family

has the benefit of driving awareness of the brand virally.

The second most common objective, driving visitors to

brand websites (78%), serves as further evidence of the

fact that marketers are focused on filling the top of the

funnel through social media. Driving website traffic is a

logical and natural outcome of increased brand aware-

ness. It is also significantly easier to measure the impactof increased site traffic on the bottom line than it is to

measure the impact of brand awareness on business per-

formance. To this end, it is important that marketers rec-

ognize the inherent challenges in calculating the ROI of

brand awareness. Consider, for example, the challenges

in calculating the ROI of a television advertisement or de-

termining the value of sponsoring a sports venue. It can

be done, but these calculations are not linear and need

to account for external factors that are difficult to isolate.

Methodology

Survey data for the 2012 update of Marketing-

Profs State of Social Media Marketing report

was collected in two distinct phases:

Phase 1 kicked off in November 2011 with

qualitative interviews from select social media

experts as recognized in the larger market-

ing community. In order to make the insights

from this report more grounded and action-

oriented, we identified hot topics from these

interviews that are currently relevant for pro-

fessionals working in social media. Their input

was incorporated into the survey and served

as a guide for the topics that will be covered

in the 2012 series of reports.

The experts interviewed represent a cross sec-

tion of social media professionals including

independent consultants, writers and editors,

researchers, platform representatives, and

client-side practitioners.

Experts:

Mark Amtower, Amtower & Company

Rebecca Corliss, HubSpot

Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer

Ann Handley, MarketingProfs

Nichole Kelly, Full Frontal ROI

Matt Magee, SearchEngineLand

Tom Martin, HelpMyBrand.com

Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget)

Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Spredfast

Aaron Strout, WCG

DJ Waldow, Waldow Social

Aaron Weber, Inventi

Phase 2 began in February 2012 with the

launch of a survey to MarketingProfs readers.

Screeners required people to indicate they

have social media marketing responsibilities

in their current professional role. In total,

459 marketers made it through the initial

set of screeners. Of those that passed the

screeners, 256 (56%) completed the entire

20-minute survey.

...social media increases the likelihood for

consumers to put your product into their

consideration set.Aaron Strout, WCG

57% of social media marketers cite Increasing purchase

consideration of the brand as another common objec-

tive. This objective serves as the bridge between brand

awareness and direct sales and is an area where social

media shines according to Aaron Strout, WCG, social

media increases the likelihood for consumers to put your

product into their consideration set.


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are more likely to focus on long-term strategic goals, such

as community building, brand awareness and demonstrat-

ing thought leadership.

Companies may have a difficult time quantifying the ROI

of social media with regard to brand awareness, but a

strong ability to measure secondary objectives suggest

that marketers are zeroing in on ways to evaluate socialmedias effectiveness. For example, increased traffic to

the website is something 68% of marketers say they can

measure effectively.

Just behind brand awareness and creating community,

showcasing thought leadership was cited by 11% of mar-

keters as their primary objective in social media programs.

Youve got to be extremely attractive to the market niche

youre going after, says Mark Amtower, Amtower & Com-

pany. You need to develop your thought leadership plat-

form. Thought leadership could be seen as a refinement

of brand awareness. Building a brands reputation fo

thought leadership increases traffic, positive mentions

and increases the level of regard by both customers and

prospective customers.

Youve got to be extremely attractive to

market niche youre going after.Mark AmtoAmtower & Comp

Increasing purchase consideration and driving sales both

fall lower on the list of primary objectives for social media

This isnt to say these are not important, but making sales

the endgame for social media efforts may be missing

some critical steps in the marketing processnamely

portraying your brand as one with which people feel good

about conducting business.


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of this whitepaper. Metrics that can be easily measured

through other channels, such as direct sales and search

engine placements, are yardsticks that are becoming

more important to both marketers and management in

light of the challenges associated with measuring ROI.

Taking an integrated approach helps realize the unique

capabilities of social media in driving increased brand

awareness while leveraging these other channels to movepeople along the conversion cycle. In essence, integrating

social media marketing efforts with other channels allevi-

ates the need social media to focus every action directly

at driving a sale.

Its Not All About the Downloads

Simple social media measures are not particularly attrac-

tive to executive management. The measurements con-

sidered least important to the C-suite include the number

of downloads (e.g. whitepaper, app), share of voice, andthe quantity and quality of user-generated content. While

these measures may be indicative of some types of suc-

cess, they also represent diagnostic opportunities for mar

keters to determine if they are doing a good job or not at

driving higher-level objectives. For example, getting more

people to download a whitepaper indicates that the top-

ics addressed in the whitepaper resonate with prospects

and that the messages used to drive awareness are effec-

tive. Increasing the share of voice indicates similar prog-

ress resonating with Business-to-Consumer audiencesWhen it comes to customer-centric metrics, consume

sentiments, insights, retention and satisfaction outweigh

numerical indicators (number of subscribers, likes, fans

etc.)and even customer service response timein their

importance to leadership.

This focus on higher-level metrics indicates that manage-

ment is more interested in driving topline results than

looking at intermediate metrics of success. Management

is looking to improve the overall impression of their brands

through social media and promote this positive sentimentto a broad audience.


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marketing channels like email and search. These chan-

nels usually have well-established means of calculating

ROI and can help collect evidence that social media is

contributing to the success of the company.

Marketing software company HubSpot was cited by experts

and survey respondents alike as being one of the most

sophisticated and effective social media and marketingtools in existence. Integrating social media efforts with

email and search marketing helps HubSpot effectively

measure the ROI of their social media efforts. At the

end of the day, if you can measure customers generated

from social media, youve won, shared Rebecca Corliss,

HubSpot. We measure the traffic, leads, and sales that

weve generated through social media specifically and

track socials impact on other channels as well. Thats

really powerful and helps me justify the time Im spending

on social. In fact, in this regard, the focus of socia

media may need to shift from a direct impact on ROI to anability to amplify other, more traditional direct marketing

methods.

Its important for companies to make sure the right tools

are in place to bridge this measurement gap. This will en-

sure they can tie social media objectives to the strategy

and tactics theyre using and have the metrics to back

it up.

At the end of the day, if you can meas

customers generated from social media, you

won.Rebecca Corliss, HubS


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people are engaged, without deriving any further value.

Theyre addressing an emotional, not a financial need.

If paid services can provide the breadth and depth of

analysis, as well as tools to make the connections between

ROI and a particular social media program overall, the

benefit will outweigh the costs.

Social Media as Amplifier

Social media is the first runner in the customer

engagement relay. Moving toward measurement of

its ROI requires integration with other channels that

have a built-in ability to track sales. This necessitates

comprehensive pre-planning and hand-off points, in

addition to objectives for each individual channel. It also

means putting in place the right measurement tools and

watching the right metrics.

We translate everything to sales revenue and cost. We

can compare the cost per impression, lead, click, in-bound

link, etc., and we can compare it to traditional media,

online advertising, PR, and SEO, says Nichole Kelly, Full

Frontal ROI. We can typically show that social media is

amplifying what those channels are already doing at a

lower cost. We start there, and then we start looking at

how we can connect to the revenue and sales picture. We

focus on the cost per metric for all of the core traditiona

advertising metrics because they have a history.

The fact that companies value those measurements tha

are directly related to the integration of social media with

other channels, such as website traffic and search engine

placement, shows that they are on the right track. This

mindfulness of the interconnectivity of various marketingchannels to drive consumers along the path to conversion, to

move them down the funnel, is a step in the right direction

Most marketers, however, are not innately analysts. Work-

ing with complicated metrics may not come naturally, so i

makes sense to invest in more sophisticated services that

expedite this process. Unfortunately, justifying the budget

for comprehensive, paid services, when the focus is typi-

cally on the need for more consumer-facing resources, isa struggle.

The marketing department ends up being an army of one,

says Aaron Weber, Inventi. The biggest problem is they can

collect all this data, but somebody still has to go through

it. The story behind the chart is still the most important

piece.

The story behind the chart is still the m

important piece.Aaron Weber, Inv


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Section 7: Conclusion

Presence is no longer the name of the gameits now

about bridging the measurement gap between brand

awareness and ROI. The marketers who continue to expand

social media presence while integrating those efforts with

more trackable channels, and then connecting data dotsfor the decision-makers, are those that will see the most

impact on their companys bottom line in 2012.

Lowering costs was the lowest rung on the priority ladder

for social media marketers, but theyre looking to boost

the bottom line in other ways. Rather than looking for

line item cuts, theyre looking to provide greater return

on marketing dollars spent. Using sophisticated, premium

tools to help them interpret metrics and tie them directly

to their objectives will make marketers more efficient at

moving consumers through the sales funnel.

The marketers who understand that closing the measure-

ment gap depends on the ability to interface with other

online marketing channels will create the most natura

path for consumers to move from awareness to purchase

The bottom line is that if marketers can grow awareness

improve measurement and connect social media metrics

to conversions, then they will have justified to manage-

ment why they should increase their investment in socia

media marketing.


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Trendline Interactive is a marketing consultancy focused on

developing messaging programs that resonate with consumers

Our unique insights are rooted in practical experience and

ongoing research on media trends. Our work with clients helps

to inform the questions we ask in interviews, focus groups, and

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Lithium is the leading provider of social customer solutions that

deliver real business results. The Lithium Social Customer Suite

offers complete social monitoring, a comprehensive community

platform, and actionable analytics across millions of blogs

forums, and social networking sites. Lithium software powers

amazing Social Customer Experiences for more than 300 iconicbrands including AT&T, Best Buy, Paypal, Sephora and Univision

helping them to build brand nations that grow brand advocacy

drive sales, reduce costs and accelerate innovation. For more

information, visit http://www.lithium.com, or connect with us on

Twitter, Facebook and our own brand nationthe Lithosphere

Lithium is privately held with corporate headquarters in Emeryvil le

Calif. and offices in Europe and Asia.

2012 state of social media marketing: social media measurement, objectives, and budget implications

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