It’ s now common to say that social media is“ really” about awareness, not sales. Companies that“ get” social media should be“ relentless givers [ who ] connect instead of promote.” In fact, forget“ traditional” ROI( that lovely qualifier), focus on consumer use of social media and, instead of calculating the returns in terms of customer response, measure the number of visits with that social media application. How convenient: to be evaluated with a metric without tangible marketplace outcomes. But it’ s wrong, a circular argument, and smart companies should not follow this flawed business logic.
The value of any advertising, online or offline, depends on what effects it has on purchases. As Bill Bernbach, David Ogilvy, and other ad execs have emphasized,“ our job is to sell our clients’ merchandise, not ourselves.” Those effects are difficult to measure, because consumers buy( or not) for many different reasons and even good ads in the right media have both carryover and wear-out effects that vary over the product life cycle and an ad campaign. But to justify an investment by activity and not outcomes is a tautology— we advertise because we advertise— not a meaningful business argument.
Even an activity measure, moreover, assumes the consumer can see the ad. Did you know that a display ad is deemed“ viewable” if at least half of each ad is visible on your computer or smart phone for a minimum of one second? Data released in 2014 by comScore indicated that more than half of online display ads appear on parts of a web page that are not viewable. In response, the Interactive Advertising Bureau noted that for various reasons 100 % viewability is“ not yet possible,” but the industry should aim for 70 %. In other words, hope that“ only” 30 % of your intended ads are not seen by anyone for at least a second!
Intelligent Social Media Marketing www. kacharagadla. in