Not long ago we read an article about measuring ROI for Pittsburgh Social Media campaigns. We think ROI is a term meant for advertising, marketing, or branding initiatives and we aim to explain why.  If you're measuring for ROI, you've got to call it advertising, marketing or branding. If you call it advertising, marketing, or branding it's not social media even though that may be the platform used to deliver the message. That’s the fundamental difference between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing and why the distinction in terminology. We measure Social Media campaigns in conversions.

The term ROI stands for return on investment. The only way to measure the ROI for anything is to separate the return and the investment costs from all other factors including all other advertising and marketing. The sum total of everything it takes to achieve your goal is by definition your investment. Time, money, internal resources, outsourced solutions, and opportunity cost are all factors that must be included to determine investment. If you define “return” in other ways such as website traffic, blog traffic, or hit counts it’s not ROI it’s a conversion rate. We think the author gets ROI and conversion rates confused.

Another reason ROI is a bad measure for Social Media is that business is not static, neither is your competition. There are too many factors that change too frequently to measure ROI for social media campaigns. Business cycles, geographic, seasonal, and climatic factors, as well as other external reasons all affect your results and bottom line. To nail down a number is a pursuit in futility. If your going to come up with a measurement metric make sure it’s valid before you base investment decisions on it.

It's the sum of the parts not the measurement of each part that matters in our opinion. Conversions, however they come, are cultivated through the whole marketing plan.

Social Media Tips:

1. Use your skills and resources wisely as they are all finite.
2. Give campaigns, social and otherwise, a fighting chance by planning a prolonged dedication of resources and don’t waver.
3. Only after a defined period of time can you look back and determine where you’re campaigns are successful and where they need work.
4. Be persistent.
5. Have Fun.

Blackball Online Marketing is the home of the Online Marketing Technologist. Liven up your online presence by contacting us. “Helping People is Good Business”

Have a different take on this subject? Do you think we are getting this all wrong? We’d welcome your thoughts.

Pittsburgh Social Media Brand Reputation Management

As people, we care about how others perceive us. Our personal reputations are what we build our careers on. Businesses have a reputation to protect as well. Not only should it be protected; it should be cultivated. Social Media provides us the opportunity to develop a closeness with our customer that didn’t exist before. In these times of increased competition and shrinking profit margins, a business must always be mindful of its reputation.

Case in point is, “Only the Paranoid Survive”, a book by Andrew S. Grove (former CEO and current chairman of the board of Intel). We’ve included a link to the Preface of the book here: http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm. This writing hammers home the idea of business as a defensive struggle against pitfalls all businesses face; internal and external.

A Business or Brand’s reputation starts from day one. It is born out of the vision the founders developed. This vision needs to be communicated clearly from the very start. What customers say about us online travels as fast as the data behind it. A strong Brand Reputation Management plan allows us to monitor these comments, good or bad. Swift and decisive action can then be taken. This makes all the difference in keeping or losing a customer.

Blackball Online monitors the Internet constantly for comments or articles relating to our business and our clients. This allows our customers to be notified of anything we may come across and allows for quick response. We believe that addressing problems provides golden opportunities to shine.

With a wide enough sample of comments, a business can gain valuable insight into products and services and how the public is reacting to them. Some companies spend millions to monitor these trends through focus groups and market research studies. For a smaller company, the same results can be achieved by monitoring social media. Why not take advantage of this vast data mine of feedback.

Contact Blackball Online for all your Pittsburgh Social Media Optimization needs including Brand Reputation Management at (412)377-7280.