Homework 12

http://www.medianewsline.com/news/165/ARTICLE/8609/2011-12-02.html

This article talks about the measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing and also about not just using the typical sites like facebook and twitter, but also using other sites too such as blogs geared towards certain interests.  This also brings up a great point that measuring the effectiveness shouldn’t just be instant results but also the long term outcomes that can come from the marketing and what will be the most effective way to do it.

http://mashable.com/2011/11/15/social-media-roi-measure/

This article goes more in depth then the first article and discusses three thoughts on how to approach the subject of measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing.  These three thoughts are social media is the vehicle not the destination, listen and apply learnings to every department and performance metrics are media agnostic.  This article discusses a great point that it’s not just being on twitter or facebook that’s important but actually posting and keeping up with everything that matters.  Effectiveness is also discussed, such as if you notice people are responding more to one topic then another, then post less of the unpopular subject.  There is a also a great reference to the fact that measuring social media effectiveness is kind of like measuring the effectiveness of a business card.  Many people can have them but it’s whether or not they use them that matters.  Just like you can have 5000 friends on facebook but if only 2 friends actually read what you have to say it’s not very effective.

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=22418&Title=How_brands_can_effectively_measure_social_media_activity_

This article suggests that there are three categories that should be looked at when measuring effectiveness of social media marketing and those include financial, reach and frequency and also affinity analysis.  The first category measures the depth of the message and the impression that an individual gets from it.   The second is to measure the return on investments similar to the second article.   The third is focused on service, relevancy of promotions, and a firms’ ability to communicate clearly.   What this breaks down to is whether or not the company is using effective promotions and whether or not people are willing to recommend them to someone else. 

From what I’ve learned there are many different approaches to measuring how effective social media marketing is, but from what I can see there is no definite and effective method.  Many of these ideas are good indicators on how to gage the success of social media marketing but there isn’t a way to give us specific numbers.  After reading these articles I’ve also learned that social media marketing isn’t something you’re going to get instant gratification for, but instead is something that will benefit a company in a long run with better results down the road from efforts made today.  As this subject continues to grow I think we’ll only be able to continue learning more and more about it.