For the last 10 years, the topic of ROI in social media has sort of been a running gag. On one side, social media specialists were fighting for a deeper measurement equation (action A + action B do not necessarily drive to a result C, but to many other consequences). In a sense, they inherited the burden of what all advertisers had not been able to prove in a whole century: the impact of communications in general on sales.
On the other hand, direct marketers were sophisticatedly demonstrating why social media was at best a gimmick for cool kids, and at worst, a waste of time.
Simplifying social media measurement generates consensus, business… but it’s wrong.
Yes, social media specialists still have a problem explaining the tangible impact of actions to their clients. Even if facts-proven case studies can a posteriori demonstrate the usefulness of a good social media framework, there’s a problem to put a figure before the value chain and another figure at the end.
As marketing is integrating all specialties in a “digital first” model, it’s a Pandora box for simplistic models. Basically, before Facebook advertising, marketers had to split what they were doing in content strategy and what they were investing in media buy. Whereas now, things seem easier to explain: as media-buy and content to feed Facebook pages or Facebook ads are on the same equation, the justification to invest is obvious – you get what you invest.
