If someone asked you to invest more money in something this year than you did last year and when you asked them to justify why you should do it, they replied they couldn’t really say, you’d probably think twice before parting with more cash. Yet, according to a recent survey of Irish marketing professionals by Edelman Digital and the Marketing Institute of Ireland, that’s exactly what people are thinking of doing when it comes to spending on social media marketing in 2015.
The survey found three-quarters of Irish marketing professionals plan to increase social media spend in 2015, despite the fact 55% admitted they hadn’t set key performance indicators (KPI) and 51% were unable to measure their return on investment in social media. Despite these shortcomings, 91% believed social media was important to their business.
Commenting on the survey, Darragh Rea, head of digital at Edelman said it showed that marketing teams were enthusiastic in their approach towards social but “all too often they fail to embed the necessary structures to adequately measure success”. Edelman’s experience was that social media could be “an incredibly effective tool but much like other marketing channels it must be measured against core business objectives with KPIs set in advance”.
He predicted “better integration of social into core marketing activities with a greater emphasis on interactivity and responsiveness rather than content publishing. We believe that those marketing teams that embrace these core principles of measurement, interactivity and paid amplification will see the greatest results from social in 2015”.
Measuring tools
Deirdre Cashion, digital marketing strategist at ProfIT Marketing believes measuring the return from social media has become a little easier because of the myriad tools available. “But before marketers can even begin to think about measurement, they have to carefully engage in realistic goal setting,” she warns. “And this is where, I believe, difficulties arise for all organisations, not just channel-focused ones.”
She believes some organisations “have started their social media journey by following the crowd, without having given any real thought as to the purpose of their social media presence and how their social media activity is going to be resourced. In the absence of this critical planning, companies can’t expect to hit performance indicators or deliver RoI”.
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers