Increasingly, the buzz is that every company--regardless of its industry focus--is a media company*. That reflects what we are hearing from clients as well. In working with a City of Portland agency whose focus is urban development, a company executive described the agency as a media-producing organization. That's a change from the recent past where this agency was largely concerned with financing City development projects. But given the changing business landscape, to achieve and maintain relevancy, organizations understand that they must be content-producing or else fade away.
In recent years, social media has been positioned as The Answer for any number of business challenges. Want to enhance your company's brand? Social Media. Want to drive more interest? Social Media. Interested in customer loyalty? Social Media. Why is this? Partly, it's because everybody is engaging in social media, so it stands to reason that online tactics must adapt to these trends somehow and participate in this sort of discussion or get lost in the crowd. Partly, it's because of data. Some data show increased site traffic following social media programs, or certainly an increase in brand awareness can be resonably assumed from a well-executed social media program. On the other hand, social media effectiveness can also be considered to be anecdotal. If end users are tweeting about your company or product, it stands to reason that this buzz will contribute to more leads...and more leads to more business. But is that the case?
A study recently done by LeadForce1* indicates that website traffic referred from a tweet is more likely to be concerned with content (like blogs) versus product information, or the completion of a contact form (see figure below from LeadForce1).
So when it comes to social media, one must consider the source to determine what end users actually will do when they visit your site. In some instances, it seems that a well-crafted tweet will result in increased interest in your content. In other cases, a social media source like LinkedIn may result directly in a lead.
Does this mean that social media that don't result directly in leads are ineffective, or don't contribute to your ROI? Not at all. But it is worth noting that some effective social media will only result in increased engagement in your content. That's not a bad thing, especially if your objectives are to enhance your brand value and to be perceived as a thought leader in your space.
What's the takeway here? The social media landscape is still very new and emerging and ROI can be murky, depending on how you measure it. It is important to understand your business goals before embarking on a social media initiative and keep ROI in mind. Better yet, understand the results that you seek before you start so that you have a more concrete way to measure once your program is underway.
* References: