Your Analytics Software does not like your Social Media Campaign.

Your analytics software does not like your social media campaign. There are certainly exceptions to this rule, but if you are going to get into the world of Twitter and Facebook, don’t expect an immediate tracked ROI from it. It is a long-term brand building solution that can take months (or years) to start showing that it is paying for itself. When we run a search and social media campaign side by side and report it as such, my social media team is constantly trying to prove themselves while the SEO team is sitting their looking like the clear winners every time.

Twitter and Facebook rarely show ROI in your analytics software, but it does not mean that it is not happening. We see the typical Social Media Campaign going down like this:

1. Internet Users sees your ad, sponsored post or finds you in the world of social media through a friends influence for a new set of running shoes. You see the suggestion and bypass it as you were probably not in the state of mind or situation to need the product or service that you saw.
2. Days later, you are at the gym and realize there is a hole in your shoes, and think to yourself that you need to get a new pair of shoes.
3. That night, you log back into your Facebook account and try and find the obscure reference that your friend was speaking about. Turns out it was the new Nike WRX cross trainers that he was ranting about.
4. You go to Google and search for Nike WRX Cross Trainer. You find several references for it.
5. You decide which website you are going to buy from and make the purchase.
6. Web Analytics Software shows the sale comes from Google, the SEO team jumps for joy, leaving the Social Media heroes with poor ROI and fighting to keep their job.

There are other ways that Social Media will play in a sale. In the above instance, someone may have seen a TV spot for the new Nike WRX Cross Trainer endorsed by Tiger Woods and decide to go online and look for it. 9 out of 10 times a person will start this in a Search Engine. They go to Google, type in “New Nike Cross Trainer” and results appear. They go through different User Generated review sites, Facebook conversations, Twitter, you name it, and finally they realize that this is the shoe for them. In this case, once again, the SEO department is going to take credit for this sale, which obviously should be going to the TV spot and online conversations about the product. The search engine had little to do in influencing the buyers decision and had it not been because of the TV and Social Media spots, the sale would have not happened.

In the current environment, unless you are a huge brand with huge budgets, it would be hard to narrow in on where your sale truly originates from.  You need to penetrate the social sector at some level, make sure you don’t make a knee-jerk reaction and base 100% of your decision on your Analytics Software. Social Media is a slow and steady campaign. One that is necessary for any well-rounded online marketing campaign.

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