How Do You Know if Social Media Marketing is Working?

Last Updated May 31, 2011 12:06 AM EDT

Is social media marketing really effective for business?BNET blogger Jeff Haden's recently argued in a post that social media marketing is a waste of time."Most small business owners I speak to feel their social media marketing efforts don't producetangible results," he wrote, citing a survey by ForeSee Results. His post is very well-written and hemakes some excellent points.

However, based on the experience of my clients, students, and the data I have read andaccumulated, I disagree. You can find data for and against any position. Social media is noexception.

In this case, I'd argue that some of the "against" data is related to ineffective content, inexperienceusing social media tools, or inadequate measurement. Given that the Fortune 500 is still wrestlingwith how to use social media -- A Harvard Business Review study found less than one out of fourusing social media analytic tools -- why would anyone expect small business owners whose time isdiluted between many different duties to be able to accurately attribute sales to social mediapromotion sources?

Not so easy to measure cause and effect

Under the most favorable conditions, it isn't easy to measure the return of investment on promotionstrategies and sales. But a good post by pr guru/blogger Brian Solis about measuring the ROI ofsocial media points to a study that shows "84 percent of professionals representing a variety ofindustries reported that they do not measure ROI" of their social media programs.

There is so much data to support the positive effect of social media, I do not know where to start.Let's start with these successful social media campaigns, noted by Mashable.

The Gap teaming up with Groupon. By the end of the day, 441,000 "groupons" were sold bringing inmore than $11 million.

Toy Story 3. To date, the film has grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide, making it the mostsuccessful animated film of all time. Social media was used extensively, along with print andtelevision, to promote the film.

AOL. AOL used social media to recruit and hire an "ambassador" for one of its sites. It attracted a lotof great candidates and selected the winner - generating a lot of excitement about the brand in theprocess.

Starbucks. The goal of the campaign was to focus on improving the sales of selected non-coffeeproducts, and it worked really well.

Mountain Dew. They developed a new flavor through fan voting creating a lot of buzz about theMountain Dew brand.

Is this translatable to small business? Absolutely. As Mashable points out, "We know we left outsome brilliant social media campaigns, especially for niche and small-scale markets."

Socialnomics

Then there is this well-done video by Socialnomics author Erik Qualman. It provides many examplesof social media ROI including a testimonial shot of Gary Vaynerchuk who grew his family businessfrom $4 million to $50 million using social media.

Jeff Haden raises some good points, and perhaps his blog post will get business owners to thinkabout their marketing strategies. However, I cannot agree with the assertion that social mediamarketing does not produce tangible results. If properly executed, it does. For those that have beenunsuccessful using social media, perhaps they should look to their content and measurement toolsbecause so many others have achieved success using social media in their marketing.

Have you achieved success with social media? How?

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Ira Kalb is president of Kalb Associates, an international consulting and training firm, and professorof marketing at the Marshall School of Business at University of Southern California (USC). He has

won numerous awards for marketing and teaching, authored ten books and over 30 articles, createdmarketing inventions that have made clients and students more successful. He is frequentlyinterviewed by various media for his expertise in branding, crisis management and strategicmarketing. Follow him on Twitter.

image courtesy of flickr user, Jon Gosier

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