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Social Media ROI: Fact or Fiction? | June 12, 2013 (0 comments)
Merrick, NY—It’s a competitive world for retailers today, and certainly so for jewelers. It's hard enough to find the right merchandise mix, the right customers and the right staff. Throw marketing--and now social media--into the mix and the degree of difficulty increases. How do you know what works? And how do you measure it?
One basic tenet of marketing is to measure your results; to find out your ROI (return on investment). It can be a hard measurement to find; some say impossible. Often, results from Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc., might not stand out to be managed and measured.
Howard Cohen of The Jeweler Blog, a company that provides blog posting and social media postings for jewelers feels that social media has great value even though it cannot be quantified. "How do you put a value on a Facebook 'like,' or a great comment from a customer regarding a blog posting?" Cohen sees social media's value as a solid tool. "The purpose of social media is relationships. How do you put a value on that? You can be top of mind with your customers. Connect with them as much as possible."
Howard Cohen
While jewelers cannot measure ROI definitively on social media, there are ways to track and quantify their efforts. The Centurion takes a look.
First, know why your company is engaging in social media. For more brand awareness? To find new customers? To make more sales? Because everyone else is doing it? All of the above?
For Ruthann Carroll, director of advertising at Smyth Jewelers, Timonium, MA, engaging in social media was and still is an easy decision even though the jury is still out on the results. "We are just starting to find out how much of an impact social media can have on our business. We know we have to be out there. That's where our customers are."
Honora's Michael Schechter, director of digital media, agrees. "We don't obsess about the exact ROI of our social media efforts. We determine and keep an eye on certain key performance indicators such as referrals and sales from digital efforts, positive customer feedback, and the traffic it drives to our site. We keep an eye on the stats that we feel matter most, but we also realize that much of our efforts are intangible or just plain difficult to measure (this is especially true when selling through multiple channels)."
Michael Schecter (photo: Instore)
Despite the lack of measurement, Schechter says his company has more interaction with the women who wear Honora's pearls than ever before. "We are able to use these tools to offer them an even better experience. As we continue to learn, I'm sure we will continue to narrow our focus and hone in more on the exact ROI, but for now, we're just focusing on what matters most: delighting those who love and buy our pearl jewelry."
Some experts believe that if you're only using social media to promote yourself, drive traffic and build new business that you'll probably be disappointed. Instead, they suggest using social media to connect with your audience on a personal level to get the best results. Others believe that your end goals for social media can be anything and those results can be measured. Many also believe that what social media does best is to gather 'soft' leads. Soft leads are those visitors that exchange their email address for something of value (a white paper or a sample, for instance).
Jeweler Daniel Gordon, Samuel Gordon Jewelers, Oklahoma City, OK, is a prime example of connecting with customers through social media. "I recently tweeted and then spoke with a potential customer for a long time. He didn't buy, but later sent in his parents, who were a competitor's longtime customers. They ended up purchasing some very expensive earrings. So, the tweet didn't work but the word of mouth did. That's my usual MO and so far it's done pretty well."
Daniel Gordon (photo: Facebook)
Gordon believes that finding a social media ROI is impossible, unless a website is running e-commerce. Still it's a worthwhile effort, he says, comparing social media to fishing, "I'm going to throw out the lure even though I'm not sure it will catch anything. If everyone is throwing it out and I don't, there's no way I'll catch anything."
No matter your end goal, if you don't know why you're spending resources (generally an employee's, agency's or your own time, each with its own dollar cost) on social media, you'll have a harder time connecting the results to the goal.
Second, don't think of ROI as an afterthought. Decide what equals success before you begin; it's harder to fit the results to your efforts otherwise.
Let's look at some specific Metric Tools that measure actual results, paired with some general intentions you and your business might have for social media. Here are some fundamental usage measurements that can be tracked for several popular social media types:
- Facebook - number of likes and shares
- Twitter - number of tweets directly from content and also retweets
- YouTube videos - number of likes, shares and embeds
- Pinterest - number of repins
- LinkedIn - number of likes and shares
While these are basic numbers, you can easily see if they are growing. If they are growing, you can see the content that received the most attention and find ways to duplicate that effort.
You can also check with each of the various mediums to find the built-in tools to help you track ROI for social media. For Facebook, it's called Insights. For LinkedIn: Company Page Insights. For Pinterest: Web Analytics. Likely any channel you feel reaches your customers has its own analytics that you can use. Of course, this doesn't tell you what sales were made or what happens on your own website once the visitors arrive there.
The goal of most business-related social media is to drive traffic to your website and encourage your visitor to complete a call to action (such as, sign up for a newsletter, buy something or send a link to friend, etc.). Here are a two ways to track that data if you are advertising:
- If you're looking to see if ads are viewed on Facebook, there's a tool, Conversion Measurement, that tracks the behavior of those who click on ads. If they click through, you know the ad worked, although you may or may not have made a sale once they arrived at your website.
- Looking to see how often people find your website via Facebook or Twitter can be easier if you analyze that data against your PPC (pay per click). Seeing how many click-throughs come from free social media placements offers you solid numbers.
Third, keep at it. No ROI measurement is perfect. It's the same with many PR and marketing efforts. However, finding the right measurements and continuing to monitor them will offer you a good look at your own company's return on investment.
Then it'll be time to worry about inventory again.
Top image: Blog.logmycalls.com