The allure and attractiveness of social media rage continues maintain its build up. At a recent meeting of the New York chapter of the Business Marketing Association, the talk was all about extending brand reputation. However, according to our research, only about 20% of marketers and agencies are able to calculate an ROI on the social media investment. Clearly some companies have been able to leverage social media to make significant and dramatic success in selling their products, Best Buys comes to mind. However, for many companies, the jump into Social Media can end-up taking quite a bit of time and investment from a company – and the ROI may not be easily discern able. But, that does not mean that social media activities are not working or beneficial.
While social media should Social Media - Facebook Photo considered as part of the promotional mix, an overall evaluation of a company’s objectives, target audience, staffing and budget needs careful consideration. Interestingly, we recently read that traditional business-to-business ad spending is expected to decline by about 8% in the coming year, but that online ad spending is expected to increase by 5.5% in 2019. In contrast, in 20 online spending had actually dropped 4.6 percent versus the previous year. Bottom line - good research and evaluation of the right “e-business” marketing mix is a must.