Marketers can’t measure return on investment from social media (infographic)

6 Feb 2015

The majority of Irish marketers say they can’t measure a return on investment from social media. Twitter has emerged as the most effective social media marketing platform, while Facebook has the numbers.

The #SocialOutlook15 survey into marketing professionals’ attitudes to social media by Edelman and the Marketing Institute of Ireland found that while the majority (91pc) believed social media was important, lack of measurement tools and strategic planning are a bugbear.

The online survey conducted over the course of November and December 2014 included more than 100 marketing professionals.

Fifty-five per cent of respondents said they haven’t set key performance indicators and 51pc are unable to measure the return on investment from social.

Twitter was seen as being the most effective (67pc) and the platform most used (87pc), however, due to the scale of the potential audience, Facebook is seen as the most important social platform (36pc). 

The vast majority of respondents (82pc) have integrated social into traditional marketing activities.

Facebook also appears to be leading the way in terms of paid support, with 70pc of respondents investing in Facebook Advertising versus 40pc in Twitter and 30pc in LinkedIn.

Marketers will still increase spend on social even if they can’t justify the ROI

Even though they still can’t measure ROI, the marketers of Ireland still plan to increase the percentage of marketing budget given to social media, with Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube destined to see the biggest increases in activity levels followed by blogging, Facebook and webinars.

“While marketing teams are enthusiastic in their approach towards social all too often they fail to embed the necessary structures to adequately measure success,” said Edelman’s head of digital Darragh Rea.

“The demise of organic reach on Facebook last year saw a greater appreciation for the need for paid support cross platforms and the evolution of the advertising solutions on social means we can expect to see huge growth in this area in 2015.

“This year we also expect to see better integration of social into core marketing activities with a greater emphasis on interactivity and responsiveness rather than content publishing. We believe that those marketing teams that embrace these core principles of measurement, interactivity and paid amplification will see the greatest results from social in 2015,” Rea said.

Confused marketer image via Shutterstock

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com