With just a handful of hours left in 2011, it doesn’t look like this will be the year that digital marketers concoct an overarching formula for measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing.
But a batch of confidence-restoring data shows that many of us have faith in our ability to analyze the basic tenets of digital marketing.
It’s a confidence game
In a study on eMarketer by way of Lenksold Group, 43% of marketers surveyed said they believe they are good at measuring engagement and participation outcomes from social media marketing.
But engagement is a fairly straightforward behavior to measure; what about lead generation, awareness, sales and ROI? Marketers across the board were less confident when it came to measuring these outcomes.
What are you so scared of?
The same study sought to discover why marketers either are or aren’t on board with social media monitoring.
Of those who place social media measurement as a high priority, most cited a need to improve effectiveness and integration with other marketing tactics. Nearly half placed measurement as a high priority because of pressure to report quantified outcomes.
Marketers that placed social media measurement as a low priority were discouraged by the experimental nature of social media measurement. Others cited lack of defined objectives and small budgets.
Will 2012 be the year that social media measurement comes to fruition? If you want to stay on your boss or client’s good side, it’s going to have to be. When clients and CMOs demand hard metrics to analyze the effectiveness of digital efforts, a marketer’s ability to provide this information is sink or swim.
Take a look at the most popular tools and tactics for social media measurement in “Rigorous Use of Analytics Reduces Time to Close B2B Sales.”
Cheers to a year of rigorous measurement and documented results.
