Is it possible to accurately track Social Media ROI?

ROI (Return on Investment) speaks to businesses. They especially speak to managers and CEOs who want to see what exactly is this doing for our company. Social media is known for being difficult to track its ROI. This difficulty is partly to blame on why businesses are hesitant to have social media marketing campaigns. Why plan a campaign if you can't measure its effectiveness? It is a valid concern. However, just because social media's ROI isn't 100% accurate, it is still an important way to communicate to customers today and should not be ignored. If a business ignores a social media campaign due to its lack of ROI then it will be very behind in the future. There are actually 5 effective ways businesses can track the ROI from social media. The first way is to have social media specific coupons and offers. If the coupon is only offered to Facebook, then you can easily track and see how many customers redeem that coupon. For example, Yoforia can offer a coupon for $4 yogurt just to their Facebook fans. They have 1,000 fans redeem the coupon but only about 150 of those actually used the coupon at a store. The second way to measure ROI is call tracking phone numbers. The idea is to provide a unique identifier to social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to learn which social media platform drives the most leads and conversations. The third way to track social media ROI is to implement a conversation measurement. This allows advertisers track the behavior of people who click through an ad. You would be able to tell if a customer clicks and then goes on your site to register, then you have proof that the ad was at least effective for that. The ideal end result is that the customer clicks through an ad and buys a product on your website. The fourth way to track social media ROI is Google Analytics. Google Analytics will tell you how much traffic your social media websites gets. It won't tell you who is visiting but it can tell you an effectiveness of campaigns. For example, if you run a new ad and you're Facebook page gets more traffic than usual then you will get an idea that the ad has at least gotten you more visitors on Facebook.The last way to measure ROI is look at overall results and work backwards. For example, if Publix ran a social media campaign on a special sale of chocolate for Valentine's Day and based on last years numbers with no social media campaign, the sales for this years chocolates on Valentine's Day doubled. This is a clear cut way to look at it. However, this does not put the economy, weather, and other various factors into play. Hence, some of these ways to measure ROI does not provide a 100% accurate answer. Actually based on a way to measure your social media ROI, you might get different answers. I think as social media campaigns mature and start to develop as a more mainstream way to do advertising then more accurate ROI measurements will evolve. 

source - http://mashable.com/2013/02/13/roi-social-media/

Consequences of Social Media "Unfriending"

"Unfriending" - the act of deleting or not being a friend to someone any more on Facebook. 

Recent research discovered that unfriending a friend on Facebook may lead to real world consequences. 40% of people say that they would avoid someone who unfriended them. 50% said they would not avoid a person who unfriended them. Women are more likely to take unfriending more personally than men (not shocking there). The idea that social media is just for fun is an idea of the past. Social media has real world consequences. All of us, especially students in college, have heard many times to be careful what you put on Facebook because employers will check our profiles. We are told from day 1 in college that social media has consequences. Therefore, it does not come to a shock to me that when someone is unfriended on Facebook that it will effect them in real life. People who are unfriended can feel lonely as a result and maybe have reduced self esteem. Everyone wants to feel included so when someone rejects you on social media, it can hurt some people emotionally. The study discovered that there are important factors in whether or not a person will avoid someone who unfriended them. The factors include if the person discussed the event after it happened, f the emotional response to the unfriending was extremely negative, and if the person unfriended believed the action was due to offline behavior. Personally, it depends who the person is that unfriended me. If I haven't seen the person since freshman year in high school then I would not be offended. But if it was someone that I knew freshman year in college and see on campus every now and then, I wouldn't say I would be offended but it would spark curiosity. As in what made you look up my Facebook and deliberately delete me? I also think that deleting a person as a friend is kind of a hassle. Even if a friend is a really obnoxious poster and blows up my news feed, usually I just block them from my news feed so I don't have to see their annoying posts. I think its better to block them from certain parts of my Facebook than to completely delete them because then you can avoid the awkward run-in if they do realize you deleted them and might want an explanation. You also avoid the risk of needing something from them in the future. Facebook and social media have added a whole new realm of social habits that effect our lives outside the internet. Social Media is a part of our life now and it is only natural that it will effect us emotionally if we do not feel included. 

Source - http://mashable.com/2013/02/06/facebook-unfriend-consequences/

Coke Super Bowl Blunder

Coke came out with a digital marketing campaign for the 2013 Super Bowl. Coke is known for their iconic marketing campaigns, like the famous polar bear during the holiday season and the iconic slogan "Open happiness." For the Super Bowl, Coke produced a commercial showing an Arabic man with a camel in the dessert and he sees a mirage of coke. Then you see a race occurring between a van of Vegas Show Girls, Mad Max Bikes, and Cowboys. Viewers could go vote online to choose who they want to win the race. The idea seems simple and easy. However, execution is where Coke failed. The site where viewers could vote was acting up and was continuously inactive. Coke was hoping to show a commercial during the Super Bowl to show off the winner but due to the failure of the voting website, Coke was not able to decide who won the race.
To be honest, I think the idea of the campaign is random and I am not sure how a race between Vegas showgirls, bikers, and cowboys relate to Coke. The campaign did stir up conversation but the conversation doesn't seem relevant. Personally, the whole idea just seems silly. After I saw the commercial, couple days prior to the Super Bowl, I did not feel any inclination to vote for a winner of the race. Good thing I didn't go vote because even if I wanted to, the website wasn't working. I believe this Super Bowl campaign for Coke was a fail from beginning to end. Viewers of the Super Bowl are not going to remember Coke's commercial. If they do remember the commercial, it'll be due to its website malfunctions. You would think after spending millions of dollars on a marketing campaign for the biggest sporting event of the year that they would make sure a website is working. Alas, it was not and ultimately lead to a relatively unsuccessful campaign for Coke. Hopefully, next time Coke will be extra cautious that all aspects of their digital campaign is functioning correctly for next year's Super Bowl.