Working with unquantifiable Social Media marketing initiatives

Posted by Bhavishya Kanjhan on Jun 2, 2009 in Uncategorized | 1 comment

The obsession to know, in quantified detail, the return achieved on the investment made (both in terms of time and money) in marketing efforts is not new. Especially with regards to a brand, any initiative or project is generally met with the same question ‘What is the ROI?’ . The real question we should, and Raj Anand of Kwiqq did ask is if trackable marketing is the be-all and end-all for brands?

The problem of the lack of directly quantifiable results exists from the days of traditional marketing. The effectiveness of TV & Radio campaigns, Billboards, or Pamphlet distribution could not be definitively determined because a variety of external factors came into play which could enhance or negate those efforts. However when online marketing was first introduced, a conscious effort was made know how effective the campaign was. Analytic tools provided detailed numbers and information on users and potential customers. Location, time spent on site, pages viewed, time spent on each page; all that information was now available in the hands of the online marketer. The most important thing however was that despite the open nature of the Internet, marketers still retained control of the image of their brand, for the most part.

The arrival and adoption of Social media changed that though. Numbers on engagement and conversations were not available; atleast not in terms of how they affected the brand. Most importantly the managers had started to lose control over their brand image as the consumers of the brand were becoming co-creators of it as were the former controllers (managers). The way Seth Godin sees it, marketing is both an art and a science and the marketer has to choose what hat to wear; that of the scientist or that of the artist.

Working on the new marketing initiatives requires an increasing use of the Artist hat. The results of its employment, once again, aren’t necessarily quantifiable, but they’re still in line with the original aims of the brand; to acquire new customers and retain existing ones. The second aim is especially catered to as individual two way communication initiated by the brand (or its representative) with the consumer facing a problem (with the product/service) will bring the consumer from the negative point to a point further down the positive line than if a customer were to have not had a problem to begin with. And it is this function, of adding value, to the brand (and its perception of it) that serves to be the unquantifiable, yet still essential benefit of Social Media.

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