Why Metrics Are Irrelevant

Published
by
Matt
on Oct 29, 2007
in New Marketing, Viral Marketing and Web 2.0
.

…in social/emerging media, that is.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the need/quest for discovering a new way to measure social media and interaction and have come to one conclusion: No one has come to any conclusions. No one is sure what to measure, or how to measure it.

But they seem determined on trying, which is puzzling to me. It’s puzzling because there is this unyielding need for some direct form of measurement. I guess the internet has spoiled us. Online, you can nail down page views, click throughs, and conversion rates for one version of a particular ad, all things that are almost impossible in other media. How can you determine the ROI on a TV commercial? How can you measure the exact views or conversion rates on a full-page newspaper ad? You really can’t, but companies spend billions every year on them just the same.

Traditional media is just not as measurable as the internet. However, social media is not as measurable as the rest of the web, which (in my opinion) is why so many are gun shy about really using it.

They don’t really understand it, and they can’t really measure it. A scary proposition for most.

Social media should be viewed and measured in a unique way. It’s not as hardcore data-oriented as adwords, but it’s also not as ambiguous as TV. We need to understand that social media is a two way street and what matters is not how many people are going down it, but how engaged and interested they are.

  • Thank you!! For too long marketers have been using metrics and ROI numbers to justify their actions or, more often, cover their asses. Discount codes to regulate sales are not effective, especially with most people now savvy enough to search for them online.

    It's a different world, and one that can't be conquered without taking some risks along the way. The marketers that don't stand behind their decisions, even in the absence of metrics, while wind up being left behind...
  • Let's be honest - if you're going to invest large funds on behalf of an advertiser in social media, you're going to have to come up with some explanation as to how the funds are going to make a difference.

    There are many ways to estimate (note I don't use the misleading term measure) the effectiveness of most media channels. Online appears the most accountable yet in reality it suffers from many of the same issues as other channels.

    Social media activity has to find a way of justifying itself. Remember that all these companies running social sites have huge values placed on them precisely because of the value they offer to advertisers. If advertisers can't "see" the value then they're not going to invest - certainly not at levels which would value companies at $bns. In short, Social Media is going to have to come up with something meaningful.

    You ask "How can you determine the ROI on a TV commercial?" - in truth you can estimate the impact of ads at a broad level relatively easily. New opportunities presented by Google and others will improve this situation further (see http://marketing-works.blogspot.com/2007/10/who...), Measures of engagement and interest will only be of use once the case is proved that they increase shareholder value more efficiently than other channels.
  • @Kate
    No, thank you for reading (and commenting). I agree that risks have to be taken to make any real progress.

    @John
    I agree with you that social media needs a justification in terms of launching a campaign, but my point was that because it isn't as measurable as standard online fare, people are scared to use it. And for TV ads, I know you can estimate the effectiveness, but it's just that, an estimate. Ballparking things is a useful tactic, but online you can measure the direct effectiveness of a particular piece of copy or banner ad in detail that's not available in other mediums. I agree we need to figure out a way to measure something, but we need to be flexible and insightful in setting our standards.
  • You can measure ROI through traditional media and many companies do. One way is to put different telephone numbers on ads. The broadcast or publication that the ad is placed in should be able to give you pretty good numbers on how many people saw the ad.

    However, much of traditional media is for branding purposes.

    I dare say that at times, conversation marketing via social media is the measurement not the marketing. Ok, I gotta go write a piece about that.
blog comments powered by Disqus