Comments on: Social Media ROI vs. ROA: Put Your Money Where Your Word-of-Mouth Is

By: Social Media ROI | SocialBizity - Social Business Ability

Social Media ROI | SocialBizity - Social Business Ability — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:51:30 +0000

[...] measure social media benefits, or on methods to track your social media efforts, or on debates on whether 10% is enough for social media marketing budget. Besides, 88% of 750 surveyed marketing professionals didn’t feel they could accurately measure [...]

By: Jon Lim

Jon Lim — Tue, 22 May 2012 18:48:57 +0000

Ron,

Could you please explain why a company or financial institution has to allocate most of their marketing budget towards social media for it to be effective? That would depend on the size of the financial institution, their budget, and how efficient they are. I disagree with that part.

I agree with point that most companies are wasting their time with social media and the ones that are avoiding it do not understand it at all. The problem with social media is that the management teams that run financial institutions do not understand social media; nor do they incorporate it the correct way for it to be beneficial.

My opinion; you do not need to make a significant investment… you need to make a significant committment and have the correct person directing the marketing effort.

By: Ron Shevlin

Ron Shevlin — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 20:36:47 +0000

Jill says “we’ve seen growth in new members and lending during a during a tough time.”

Sounds like ROI to me.

And if the “learned more about how people communicate…” part has helped to reduce traditional marketing research costs, then that sounds like ROI to me, too.

Not sure where the disagreement lies.

By: Jill

Jill — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:44:31 +0000

I have to say that I disagree when it comes to measuring return, especially when many marketing spends are weak at best in drawing a solid line from investment to bottom line contribution. This isn’t a new problem for marketers, but I’d say it’s even worse for anyone who is only “dabbling” in any medium.

Our venture into social media has been a learning experience far beyond the teachings of any conference breakout session or wide spread white paper. We’ve learned more about how people communicate, think, care, act, rant, rave…and as a result, we’ve gotten better and more diverse in the tools we use to market a message(video, photos, website structure) not just in the social space, but in every delivery channel. In turn, we’ve seen growth in new members and lending during a during a tough time.

In the grand scheme of things, social media is brand spanking new but it’s clearly here to stay. I for one wouldn’t want to be on the bottom end of the learning curve when it comes to understanding and pulling value out of such a cheap, wide spread communication channel.

By: Brad P.

Brad P. — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 16:42:31 +0000

Great article. I feel like Facebook and Twitter have sucked all the air out of the social media room. Being social is a lot more than pages on two websites. Look at USAA. It’s difficult to find a page on their website that doesn’t have member ratings, stories or questions. There’s a great Forrester case study that list the tangible results they’ve seen from making their own site more social. Credit unions and community banks are tailor made for this service but keep doing the same tired marketing that everyone else does. Hopefully some of the more forward thinking marketers will change this and take advantage of the current sentiment towards big banks. All major retailers do it and once again financial services is falling behind.

By: Tim B.

Tim B. — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:02:09 +0000

Good point and conclusion. We aren’t really focused at all on social media, and we certainly don’t spend any money on it. However, we are positioning ourselves to do so in the future. Times are changing, but solid planning should continue throughout. Many CU’s have no idea how to plan for this shift.