Working towards measurable results from Social Media Marketing

Internet consultants have been advised to consider aligning their social marketing aims with relevant metrics, as this may help prove return on investment and measure progress.

This is according to a new chart produced by Marketing Sherpa, which defines social marketing maturity as having three stages of development.

The first is a trial where social platforms are first implemented, the second is the transitional phase where informal processes are introduced and performed at random and the third is strategic, where formal methods are brought in and used routinely.

It was found that, during the strategic period, objectives such as increasing website traffic that are both targeted and measured climbed from 58 per cent in the trial phase to 88 per cent.

In addition, where the goal was to increase lead generation, the figure jumped from 32 per cent in the initial proceedings to 75 per cent when the strategies were more defined.

Senior analyst Sergio Balegno - who purports to be Marketing Sherpa's "resident expert on social media marketing" - observed that bringing together the objectives and metrics is an obvious step that is "often overlooked".

"An organisation in the strategic phase of social marketing maturity is much more likely to align their objectives with corresponding metrics than organisations in earlier phases," he said.