Also read: Social media results? Easy to measure!
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 5:27 am
The current situation in the Netherlands and Belgium
Although agencies generally do have objectives for the total campaign, these are not always translated into specific KPIs for social media. This is not only evident from our own qualitative research among Utrecht and Rotterdam marcom agencies. It is in line with the entire Dutch and Belgian professional practice. According to a recent study by Het Platform Content (in collaboration with Hogeschool Leiden and the Belgian CUSTO) among almost two hundred Dutch and Belgian marketers and communication professionals, 52% have formulated KPIs, but only 35% always measure afterwards whether the objectives have been achieved. Fifteen percent use leads and 3% use turnover as an indicator to measure the effectiveness of content.
The current situation in the US
In the United States, we see a similar picture based on the CMO Survey February 2017 by Deloitte (and others) among almost four hundred top marketers of profit companies. The expectations are that the marketing budget for social media will increase by more than 40% in the next 5 years, while social media is only moderately integrated with the marketing strategy (an average of 4.1 on a seven-point scale). The impact of social media on the company can be substantiated by only 18.4%, although 38.2% say they have a good qualitative feeling about the impact.
According to the marketers asked, the use of social media does not contribute sufficiently to business performance (an average of 3.2 on a seven-point scale). According to the Internet Trends 2017 study by Kleiner Perkins among three hundred and fifty social media advertisers, advertisers like engagement metrics. 61 percent call measuring ROI the biggest challenge, in addition to obtaining budget & resources (38%) and linking social media to business objectives (34%).
Vanity metrics
If concrete objectives are used to measure the impact of social media, the metrics are often about the number of likes and retweets, followers and fans. This is also in line with international research: “ 80% of US-based client-side marketers measure the effectiveness of their social content, with social media metrics such as 'likes' being the most common measure ” (Ama.org, pdf). But how relevant are these metrics for realizing the marketing objectives? Forbes and others therefore also characterize them as ' vanity metrics ':
“When it comes to metrics and campaign italy whatsapp number tracking, one of the easiest mistakes you can make is to focus on 'vanity metrics', instead of the metrics that really matter. Vanity metrics are things like page views, number of followers or the number of downloads of your free report. They make you feel good, but they don't actually add anything to your bottom line .”
Characteristic of social media is that you can measure a great deal, much easier than with traditional media. In his book The Digital Metrics Field Guide (aff.), for example, Rappaport describes 197 metrics based on a literature study with 150 studies and 12 essays. At the table in the boardroom, however, the question will always be asked: 'What does that give us?' To what extent do social media contribute to the desired behavior in terms of (inter-)action with the brand and purchase of a product or service?
Impact versus effort?
We also presented our thinking about social media metrics and model heuristics to a number of partner marcom agencies (namely: Huug Barendrecht from Holland Spoor, Ronald van Schaik from Kaliber, Bart van der Kooi from Kaiola and Menno Urbanus from R2Research). I also incorporated their feedback (for which many thanks!). Against that background, here is another tip:
Although agencies generally do have objectives for the total campaign, these are not always translated into specific KPIs for social media. This is not only evident from our own qualitative research among Utrecht and Rotterdam marcom agencies. It is in line with the entire Dutch and Belgian professional practice. According to a recent study by Het Platform Content (in collaboration with Hogeschool Leiden and the Belgian CUSTO) among almost two hundred Dutch and Belgian marketers and communication professionals, 52% have formulated KPIs, but only 35% always measure afterwards whether the objectives have been achieved. Fifteen percent use leads and 3% use turnover as an indicator to measure the effectiveness of content.
The current situation in the US
In the United States, we see a similar picture based on the CMO Survey February 2017 by Deloitte (and others) among almost four hundred top marketers of profit companies. The expectations are that the marketing budget for social media will increase by more than 40% in the next 5 years, while social media is only moderately integrated with the marketing strategy (an average of 4.1 on a seven-point scale). The impact of social media on the company can be substantiated by only 18.4%, although 38.2% say they have a good qualitative feeling about the impact.
According to the marketers asked, the use of social media does not contribute sufficiently to business performance (an average of 3.2 on a seven-point scale). According to the Internet Trends 2017 study by Kleiner Perkins among three hundred and fifty social media advertisers, advertisers like engagement metrics. 61 percent call measuring ROI the biggest challenge, in addition to obtaining budget & resources (38%) and linking social media to business objectives (34%).
Vanity metrics
If concrete objectives are used to measure the impact of social media, the metrics are often about the number of likes and retweets, followers and fans. This is also in line with international research: “ 80% of US-based client-side marketers measure the effectiveness of their social content, with social media metrics such as 'likes' being the most common measure ” (Ama.org, pdf). But how relevant are these metrics for realizing the marketing objectives? Forbes and others therefore also characterize them as ' vanity metrics ':
“When it comes to metrics and campaign italy whatsapp number tracking, one of the easiest mistakes you can make is to focus on 'vanity metrics', instead of the metrics that really matter. Vanity metrics are things like page views, number of followers or the number of downloads of your free report. They make you feel good, but they don't actually add anything to your bottom line .”
Characteristic of social media is that you can measure a great deal, much easier than with traditional media. In his book The Digital Metrics Field Guide (aff.), for example, Rappaport describes 197 metrics based on a literature study with 150 studies and 12 essays. At the table in the boardroom, however, the question will always be asked: 'What does that give us?' To what extent do social media contribute to the desired behavior in terms of (inter-)action with the brand and purchase of a product or service?
Impact versus effort?
We also presented our thinking about social media metrics and model heuristics to a number of partner marcom agencies (namely: Huug Barendrecht from Holland Spoor, Ronald van Schaik from Kaliber, Bart van der Kooi from Kaiola and Menno Urbanus from R2Research). I also incorporated their feedback (for which many thanks!). Against that background, here is another tip: