2012 state of social media marketing: social media measurement, objectives, and budget implications
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing:Social Media Measurement, Objectives,
and Budget Implications
Sponsored by
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 2
May 2, 2012
Dear Fellow Marketer,
Theres a clear disconnect between the perceived value marketers get from social media and their
ability to demonstrate and act on that value, but it doesnt have to be that way.
To prove it, Lithium teamed up with MarketingProfs to delve more thoroughly into the issue of
social media marketing ROI, surveying over 450 marketers around how they use social media and
what exactly they realize from their efforts. What we found were sometimes subtle and sometimes
significant differences in the ways in which marketers approach measurement in the first place,and that the approach made all the difference.
Marketers who have graduated from counting social KPIs (like fans and followers) to measuring
real business outcomes (like driving word of mouth marketing and accelerating innovation) are
those that drive the most impressive ROI. More experienced marketers who focus on long-term
strategic goals such as community building and increasing brand awareness are unlocking the full
potential of social media and struggling less with demonstrating ROI than their less experienced
cohorts.
But we already knew that. We knew it from our nearly 10 years of experience working with todays
top social brands like AT&T, Best Buy, Sephora. Lithiums Social Customer Experience suite
enables marketers to unlock the full potential of working with their social customers. Our SaaS-based software helps companies listen comprehensively to their social customers, engage with
them, grow brand advocacy, harness their ideas for product innovationsand measure ROI in real
dollar terms against real business objectives.
A special thanks to MarketingProfs for helping us to test our theory and prove it correct. Social
media marketing ROI need not be so elusive for so many. Leading-edge technology plus a mature,
strategic approach to social media marketing puts us squarely on the path to nailing social media
marketing ROI.
Enjoy the report!
Sincerely,
Katy Keim, Lithium Chief Marketing Officer
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 3
Executive Summary
In just two years, the focus of social media marketing has shifted significantly from mere
participation to driving value and convincing management that social media initiatives
are having a meaningful impact on the overall business. Now, with its prominent
role in the marketing arsenal, social media is charged with a greater responsibility in
demonstrating how it contributes to the bottom line. Marketers have quickly turned
to ROI as the equalizing metric, however, an over-emphasis on ROI has led some
marketers to implement hard sell tactics that do not resonate well in social mediaenvironments. Understanding the role of social media in the marketing funnel as a
driving of brand awareness will help marketers address the measurement gap that
has emerged between managements expectations and marketers ability to measure
against those expectations.
This report explores these issues in order to bring clarity to the relationship between
social medias objectives (e.g., brand awareness) and the desired metrics (e.g., ROI), as
well as how integration with other marketing channelswith more well-established and
direct metrics (e.g., search, company website and email)will bridge the disconnect
When social media marketers can effectively track the success of their programs through
cross-channel integration using metrics that resonate with the companys C-suite, theycan demonstrate the true success of their programs and improve the investment in
their social media initiatives.
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Section 2: Defining the Objective
The Social Media Marketing Funnel
Marketers often have multiple objectives for their social
media programs. When evaluating these common objec-
tives, it turns out that they correspond with the stages of atypical sales funnel. Starting at the top of the funnel, 91%
of marketers list brand awareness as one of the core
objectives of their social media program. The percentage
of marketers targeting objectives related to downstream
activities, including increasing purchase consideration
(57%), driving direct sales online (46%) and offline (33%)
and driving CRM activities (31%), decreases as we move
further down the sales funnel.
In addition to the fact 91% of marketers cite brand aware-
ness as one of the objectives of their social media pro-
grams, 66% cite increasing positive mentions of theirbrand online as one of the objectives. This supplements
the larger goal of brand awareness, since personal recom-
mendations from a trusted network of friends and family
has the benefit of driving awareness of the brand virally.
The second most common objective, driving visitors to
brand websites (78%), serves as further evidence of the
fact that marketers are focused on filling the top of the
funnel through social media. Driving website traffic is a
logical and natural outcome of increased brand aware-
ness. It is also significantly easier to measure the impactof increased site traffic on the bottom line than it is to
measure the impact of brand awareness on business per-
formance. To this end, it is important that marketers rec-
ognize the inherent challenges in calculating the ROI of
brand awareness. Consider, for example, the challenges
in calculating the ROI of a television advertisement or de-
termining the value of sponsoring a sports venue. It can
be done, but these calculations are not linear and need
to account for external factors that are difficult to isolate.
Methodology
Survey data for the 2012 update of Marketing-
Profs State of Social Media Marketing report
was collected in two distinct phases:
Phase 1 kicked off in November 2011 with
qualitative interviews from select social media
experts as recognized in the larger market-
ing community. In order to make the insights
from this report more grounded and action-
oriented, we identified hot topics from these
interviews that are currently relevant for pro-
fessionals working in social media. Their input
was incorporated into the survey and served
as a guide for the topics that will be covered
in the 2012 series of reports.
The experts interviewed represent a cross sec-
tion of social media professionals including
independent consultants, writers and editors,
researchers, platform representatives, and
client-side practitioners.
Experts:
Mark Amtower, Amtower & Company
Rebecca Corliss, HubSpot
Jason Falls, Social Media Explorer
Ann Handley, MarketingProfs
Nichole Kelly, Full Frontal ROI
Matt Magee, SearchEngineLand
Tom Martin, HelpMyBrand.com
Jeff Rohrs, ExactTarget)
Jordan Viator Slabaugh, Spredfast
Aaron Strout, WCG
DJ Waldow, Waldow Social
Aaron Weber, Inventi
Phase 2 began in February 2012 with the
launch of a survey to MarketingProfs readers.
Screeners required people to indicate they
have social media marketing responsibilities
in their current professional role. In total,
459 marketers made it through the initial
set of screeners. Of those that passed the
screeners, 256 (56%) completed the entire
20-minute survey.
...social media increases the likelihood for
consumers to put your product into their
consideration set.Aaron Strout, WCG
57% of social media marketers cite Increasing purchase
consideration of the brand as another common objec-
tive. This objective serves as the bridge between brand
awareness and direct sales and is an area where social
media shines according to Aaron Strout, WCG, social
media increases the likelihood for consumers to put your
product into their consideration set.
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 8
are more likely to focus on long-term strategic goals, such
as community building, brand awareness and demonstrat-
ing thought leadership.
Companies may have a difficult time quantifying the ROI
of social media with regard to brand awareness, but a
strong ability to measure secondary objectives suggest
that marketers are zeroing in on ways to evaluate socialmedias effectiveness. For example, increased traffic to
the website is something 68% of marketers say they can
measure effectively.
Just behind brand awareness and creating community,
showcasing thought leadership was cited by 11% of mar-
keters as their primary objective in social media programs.
Youve got to be extremely attractive to the market niche
youre going after, says Mark Amtower, Amtower & Com-
pany. You need to develop your thought leadership plat-
form. Thought leadership could be seen as a refinement
of brand awareness. Building a brands reputation fo
thought leadership increases traffic, positive mentions
and increases the level of regard by both customers and
prospective customers.
Youve got to be extremely attractive to
market niche youre going after.Mark AmtoAmtower & Comp
Increasing purchase consideration and driving sales both
fall lower on the list of primary objectives for social media
This isnt to say these are not important, but making sales
the endgame for social media efforts may be missing
some critical steps in the marketing processnamely
portraying your brand as one with which people feel good
about conducting business.
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 10
of this whitepaper. Metrics that can be easily measured
through other channels, such as direct sales and search
engine placements, are yardsticks that are becoming
more important to both marketers and management in
light of the challenges associated with measuring ROI.
Taking an integrated approach helps realize the unique
capabilities of social media in driving increased brand
awareness while leveraging these other channels to movepeople along the conversion cycle. In essence, integrating
social media marketing efforts with other channels allevi-
ates the need social media to focus every action directly
at driving a sale.
Its Not All About the Downloads
Simple social media measures are not particularly attrac-
tive to executive management. The measurements con-
sidered least important to the C-suite include the number
of downloads (e.g. whitepaper, app), share of voice, andthe quantity and quality of user-generated content. While
these measures may be indicative of some types of suc-
cess, they also represent diagnostic opportunities for mar
keters to determine if they are doing a good job or not at
driving higher-level objectives. For example, getting more
people to download a whitepaper indicates that the top-
ics addressed in the whitepaper resonate with prospects
and that the messages used to drive awareness are effec-
tive. Increasing the share of voice indicates similar prog-
ress resonating with Business-to-Consumer audiencesWhen it comes to customer-centric metrics, consume
sentiments, insights, retention and satisfaction outweigh
numerical indicators (number of subscribers, likes, fans
etc.)and even customer service response timein their
importance to leadership.
This focus on higher-level metrics indicates that manage-
ment is more interested in driving topline results than
looking at intermediate metrics of success. Management
is looking to improve the overall impression of their brands
through social media and promote this positive sentimentto a broad audience.
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 12
marketing channels like email and search. These chan-
nels usually have well-established means of calculating
ROI and can help collect evidence that social media is
contributing to the success of the company.
Marketing software company HubSpot was cited by experts
and survey respondents alike as being one of the most
sophisticated and effective social media and marketingtools in existence. Integrating social media efforts with
email and search marketing helps HubSpot effectively
measure the ROI of their social media efforts. At the
end of the day, if you can measure customers generated
from social media, youve won, shared Rebecca Corliss,
HubSpot. We measure the traffic, leads, and sales that
weve generated through social media specifically and
track socials impact on other channels as well. Thats
really powerful and helps me justify the time Im spending
on social. In fact, in this regard, the focus of socia
media may need to shift from a direct impact on ROI to anability to amplify other, more traditional direct marketing
methods.
Its important for companies to make sure the right tools
are in place to bridge this measurement gap. This will en-
sure they can tie social media objectives to the strategy
and tactics theyre using and have the metrics to back
it up.
At the end of the day, if you can meas
customers generated from social media, you
won.Rebecca Corliss, HubS
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2012 State of Social Media Marketing| 14
people are engaged, without deriving any further value.
Theyre addressing an emotional, not a financial need.
If paid services can provide the breadth and depth of
analysis, as well as tools to make the connections between
ROI and a particular social media program overall, the
benefit will outweigh the costs.
Social Media as Amplifier
Social media is the first runner in the customer
engagement relay. Moving toward measurement of
its ROI requires integration with other channels that
have a built-in ability to track sales. This necessitates
comprehensive pre-planning and hand-off points, in
addition to objectives for each individual channel. It also
means putting in place the right measurement tools and
watching the right metrics.
We translate everything to sales revenue and cost. We
can compare the cost per impression, lead, click, in-bound
link, etc., and we can compare it to traditional media,
online advertising, PR, and SEO, says Nichole Kelly, Full
Frontal ROI. We can typically show that social media is
amplifying what those channels are already doing at a
lower cost. We start there, and then we start looking at
how we can connect to the revenue and sales picture. We
focus on the cost per metric for all of the core traditiona
advertising metrics because they have a history.
The fact that companies value those measurements tha
are directly related to the integration of social media with
other channels, such as website traffic and search engine
placement, shows that they are on the right track. This
mindfulness of the interconnectivity of various marketingchannels to drive consumers along the path to conversion, to
move them down the funnel, is a step in the right direction
Most marketers, however, are not innately analysts. Work-
ing with complicated metrics may not come naturally, so i
makes sense to invest in more sophisticated services that
expedite this process. Unfortunately, justifying the budget
for comprehensive, paid services, when the focus is typi-
cally on the need for more consumer-facing resources, isa struggle.
The marketing department ends up being an army of one,
says Aaron Weber, Inventi. The biggest problem is they can
collect all this data, but somebody still has to go through
it. The story behind the chart is still the most important
piece.
The story behind the chart is still the m
important piece.Aaron Weber, Inv
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Section 7: Conclusion
Presence is no longer the name of the gameits now
about bridging the measurement gap between brand
awareness and ROI. The marketers who continue to expand
social media presence while integrating those efforts with
more trackable channels, and then connecting data dotsfor the decision-makers, are those that will see the most
impact on their companys bottom line in 2012.
Lowering costs was the lowest rung on the priority ladder
for social media marketers, but theyre looking to boost
the bottom line in other ways. Rather than looking for
line item cuts, theyre looking to provide greater return
on marketing dollars spent. Using sophisticated, premium
tools to help them interpret metrics and tie them directly
to their objectives will make marketers more efficient at
moving consumers through the sales funnel.
The marketers who understand that closing the measure-
ment gap depends on the ability to interface with other
online marketing channels will create the most natura
path for consumers to move from awareness to purchase
The bottom line is that if marketers can grow awareness
improve measurement and connect social media metrics
to conversions, then they will have justified to manage-
ment why they should increase their investment in socia
media marketing.
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