Art and science

Picking up on my last post we have been collecting stats and facts that help us connect the art and science that helps us understand the value of social.  Here are a few I like:

42% increase in propensity to search and 1.7% increase in search to purchase. GroupM study on impact of social content on search; Oct 09

75% say friends influence brand decisions versus 16% for advertising. BMRB

Brands with higher advocacy have higher sales. LSE

Brands who have multi social assets and make them available in multiple places have greater connection with consumers and are more highly valued. Engagement db  

Online user reviews & recommendations are the most influential source of information. Weber Shandwick

Social KPIs

What is the value of social marketing?  Big question.  Given you can track pretty much every interaction and contribution it can get pretty confusing and complex.  I think the key value is in what it does for your brand and sales, ultimately that is what matters.  Anyone ‘investing’ in social must believe that advocacy is a major drive of their business otherwise you would not bother.  Intuition tells you that if someone spends time having a positive, enjoyable or useful experience interacting with your brand then it will have some impact on their propensity to spend money with you or to encourage someone else to do so.  If you agree then when you set KPIs for social you are doing it in context of your overall marketing challenge and objective.  To understand value you have to be able to understand the impact that time spent with your brand has on you business.  I would suggest these metrics are not short term and that social has an always on role and therefore overtime will have increasing impact on your bottom line.  You can spend time analysing all the detailed metrics like view, shares, comments, contributions etc but keep in mind that these are only interim metrics and only contribute to the true ROI.