From Return on Investment to Return on Impression
The new ROI of social media marketing and online branding
There is a brand battle waging on the social web, but the best brands won’t necessarily win. Instead, the companies that come out on top will be those that are backed by people who understand that building a brand through social media today requires on a new kind of ROI measurement.
Social media marketers use the term return-on-objectives (ROO), rather than return-on-investment (ROI), in an effort to use a system of soft metrics to measure the value of social web participation for long-term brand building and business growth. That’s because the power of social media comes not from click-throughs but from conversations, and those conversations come from the creation of share-worthy content that people want to talk about.
Strike up the brand
So what is the soft metric that businesses should track, to prove their social media marketing success to the powers-that-be that approve the marketing budget each year?
It starts by understanding the importance of brand. There is no space on the company income statement for “brand,” but there is no doubt that brand value can catapult a business to success (think of the Harry Potter brand) or sustain a business success longer than the expected life span (think of the Playboy brand). Social media marketing value works the same way: There might not be a space for it on the company income statement, but by applying soft metrics to your efforts, you can demonstrate the value in them.
Most importantly, tracking online brand advertising and social media marketing success comes from tracking return-on-impression, the new form of ROI. Return-on-iImpression encompasses two primary soft metric values:
1. Eyeballs: Impressions can be the quantifiable statistic related to how often your branded content and messages are viewed by the online audience, similar to impression-based online advertising. However, those impressions can happen anywhere across the social web, such as in blog posts, blog comments, Twitter updates, Facebook updates, Digg submissions, YouTube videos and so on. In other words, share-worthy content spreads and boosts impressions, which leads to conversations. With that in mind, there are different levels of what constitutes an “impression,” starting with simply viewing content and ranging all the way up to passionately discussing and engaging with content.
2. Perceptions: Impressions can be an immeasurable representation of added value related to how your branded content and messages are received by the online audience, and how that content affects its perceptions of your brand and business. After all, brand value comes from consumers, so it makes sense that creating amazing, share-worthy content that gets an audience talking about a brand and business is an incredible opportunity for massaging consumer perceptions.
The bottom line: Measuring return-on-impression for online brand advertising and social media marketing is a long-term strategy that adds intrinsic value to a business. It does this by focusing on creating conversations and eliciting emotions for a brand, which leads to brand loyalty and, ultimately, to brand advocacy.
There is no doubt that a band of vocal online brand advocates who champion and defend a brand across the social web is a word-of-mouth marketing force to be reckoned with. Sure, there might not be a hard metric to calculate the return-on-investment related to word-of-mouth marketing and brand advocacy, but the return-on-impression generated by them is unequivocally valuable.
Closer to the heart
In other words, if your success metrics tied to your online brand advertising and social media marketing initiatives are based on click-throughs or actual sales numbers only, then you’re setting up your business for failure or, at the very least, disappointment. Instead, think about impressions and how your efforts are paying off in terms of getting your business closer to your long-term objectives.
Remember, online brand advertising and social media marketing success is about the quality of relationships and engagement, not just their quantity. Having 10,000 Twitter followers sounds great, but if those 10,000 people don’t care about your brand, then they’re not helping you reach your return-on-objectives or return-on-impression goals. However, 1,000 quality followers who are actively engaged with your business and brand can deliver ROO and ROI that can make a significant, positive difference in your business’ bottom line over the long term.
— Susan Gunelius
Susan Gunelius is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a full-service marketing communications company, and the author of Building Brand Value the Playboy Way and the upcoming Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon. Follow Susan on her blog.
(Imaqge by Incase via Flickr, CC 2.0)
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[ 3 comments | Categories: Industry Trends, Insights, Research, Social Media ]
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