MarketingLand published a post Sep 26 based on new research that reports that Fewer Than 1% Of Sales Can Be Tracked Back To Social Media.
Image Credit: Tom Fishburne Marketoonist – Cartoons for Sale for businesses ~ free for blog use with attribution ~ Click Image for How to Use his Great Cartoons
I wanted to share my comment in that post with my readers and expand on it:
Social Media is a COMMUNICATIONS TOOL Like Your Telephone
Measuring the ROI of social media is like measuring the ROI of your telephone. It is a means of communication which increases brand awareness – but it does not drive direct sales in the way that organic search and ppc do. There is no simple way to measure how many more organic or AdWords clicks your listings get because someone knows about you from social media, or blogs, or any other source.
MEASURING SOCIAL MEDIA
What you can do is measure increased traffic and sales using the social media measurement timelines method explained by Olivier Blanchard @TheBrandBuilder and apply some common sense.
If more people know your name, brand or product, more people are
going to click on YOUR listings than will if they never heard of you.
FUTURE OF SEARCH
We need to realize that search is going to be used less as people can get answers on social media and blogs from their friends, family and people they believe are experts. They may click through from those sources, but they may just type in your URL and you can NOT tell where they found you.
That said, nothing YOU CAN EASILY MEASURE converts like search
because people search when they are ready to buy.
The bad news about search is that Google knows which keyword phrases are the money phrases and they are systematically taking them away from small business and handing them to their big brand buddies.
This is no secret. Google’s CEO TOLD US that was their intention and every update since then has taken them in that direction. See Aaron Wall’s post on Google Favoring Big Brands and my comment in that post about what I believe they mean.
See this Visual Timeline of Google Updates and Algorithm Changes
WHAT INCREASES SALES
Success comes from consistent quality and service. Businesses that don’t provide them both gradually die and those that DO focus on them consistently grow through personal recommendations which have the highest conversion rate of all – and no – you can’t measure that either.
Get serious or you’re going to go out of business.
Start with How to Get Referrals and Recommendations
There is nothing that converts or that sends you the massive traffic and conversions that Google’s monopoly on search did. NOTHING. So stop wasting time worshipping at the altar of Google hoping that will keep them from eventually taking away YOUR traffic and sales.
Build your business the slow old-fashioned way that has always worked – through actually delivering consistent, awesome service and quality products.
If you’re not sure what you should be doing, find someone who
actually knows what they’re doing and hire them.
If you don’t know who that is ASK ME.
If you can’t afford to hire someone ASK ME.
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Measuring the ROI of social media is like measuring the ROI of your telephone. It is a means of communication which increases brand awareness but it does not drive direct sales in the way that organic search and ppc do.Thanks for sharing information about social media.
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i think in social media forum posting is also very important for if we wanna to earn more our business.
This post is like music to my ears. It seems that everywhere I turn everyone is looking for the quickest fix. They want rankings – FAST! They want traffic – STAT and sales – PRONTO! Far too many people are being consumed by greed and are a) resorting to under-handed tactics and/or b) are damaging their brand in the process. Everyone who has recently used one of the words in CAPS that I’ve written above needs to hear and ahere to your message:
“Build your business the slow old-fashioned way that has always worked – through actually delivering consistent, awesome service and quality products”
I’m so glad to see that someone still has their head screwed on the right way in this industry!
Twitter: GrowMap
October 26, 2012 at 9:18 am
Hi Trent,
The reason so few know how to grow a business is that the appeal of “easy money” causes them to not do what is really necessary. You would probably like the post I published yesterday that expounds on How to Make Money Online and warns against believing the get-rich-quick crowd.
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Excellent post. This article have taught me a lot of things which I previously wasn’t aware of during my social media marketing compaigns. I admire you have something that I don’t know.
Thank you.
Twitter: hypernovadesign
October 19, 2012 at 10:12 am
Very interesting topic! What social media does to me it increasing traffic to my website as well as better engagement with other people.
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Before working towards the social media, one must possess an entire plan of it. Planning and correct execution goes hand in hand. Therefore, social media requires a good amount of thought process before one starts with it. This will help the media convert.
Social media is a very effective tool in boosting sales. It is very important for an online marketer to be able to master some techniques like the ones mentioned above for his online business to prosper. Good read, my friend!
Thanks for the engrossing read–Social media platforms revolutionized the way we exchange or share our ideas, business propositions and marketing campaigns. Although this method is really popular nowadays, search engines are here to stay.
in seo social media is the power full source to enhance a business.if we use other techniques with social media marketing like web building,blog writing,article writing then the result is different.
You are right sir, social media for me is now going to be one of the biggest competitor of news channels, T.V. channels and also the ads promotion in sign boards. Anyhow, I think one should select social media marketing for his any type of project promotion, rather than paying a lot to those channels.
Hello ,
Excellent post. i have learned too many things which i was not using in my social media marketing campaigns. My ROI was nothing, I hope i can increase now. Thank you
Zane
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Yes, there is truth behind this post. This might indeed be true, but it does present insurers with a dilemma: Who should have this conversation? Most insurers have a well-developed channel to the customer, in the form of the local agent. But social media is throwing a monkey wrench spanner into the mix by opening up a direct line. This is a classic clash between sales and marketing. Thanks to share this informative post.
Awesome Tips, I am almost Using all the Above Mentioned Point, I mostly left to Update the website Content, But know I started doing that, Hope for the Positive Results
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