Social Media Club Mumbai

Name – Sanjay Mehta

Designation- Jt. CEO

Organization- Social Wavelength

How important do you think Social Media platforms are? Or do you think this is just a passing fad?

They are big. They are here to stay. Not a passing fad by any chance. Social Media enables people to do, what they naturally like to do, e.g. staying in touch, making new friends, belonging to groups, getting validation, etc. When something helps you do, what you anyway want to do, its here to stay!

Do you see an ROI from the medium? How would you define it?

ROI for sure, if we are talking of “Risk of Inaction”! Then again, what is the ROI of the telephone? Of the accountant? Social media is part of the business ecosystem, and it recovers money at end of the day, via various contributions or alternately cost savings, that it enables. In some cases, it can drive transactions as well, and those are the cases, where ROI is faster.

What challenges do you think people/brands/organizations will face in accepting this medium?

The biggest challenge is one that is faced by all new breakthroughs in technology related space. Waiting for others to do it first. Waiting for case studies to happen. Waiting for later. Waiting for references. In short.. waiting!

Then, when it gets to the point where competition or a senior in the company drives one to the space, then there are mistakes made. Because decisions are made hurriedly. This will then see, knee-jerks that don’t work.

Obsession with the way things used to happen, is another challenge. Benchmarking with different types of traditional media is a challenge, when these are not comparable.

by

Ankita Gaba

The real challenge for social media just like for other digital media advertising or marketing initiatives is the ROI. But the mistake made by Banner s/SEM or SEO per se has been the metrics used for what was termed as ‘value’. ‘Clicks’ have been both the boon and bane for the digital medium and has possibly been the most measured and over measured metric. The question that marketers in the real world have always been asking is what value does that click bring to my brand, sales and business at the end of the day?

The same rule has started to apply to Social Media as well. While the Search marketers went from clicks to leads to conversions in search of value and some have even gone to measuring the lifetime value of those converted social media which is still in its infancy has to still define its value or ROI.

In a recent conversation with one of our clients I realized that the clients want to see a metric they understand. They want to put Digital and social media on the same platter as TV, Print and others and serve that to their management. The metrics he came up with were brand awareness, brand salience and lead generation. He asked can you tell me how can social media deliver these 3 in what way, to how many people, across how many geographies and for how many months?

This question made me realize that we need to start talking about social media marketing and its deliverables in real world metrics and not clicks, conversations, followers or fans. While these numbers are indicative they by no means are a true measure of the success of a campaign. I believe sooner or later someone has to bridge the real world and the virtual world divide in terms of understanding of value and then and only then would the real advertisers and marketers jump on to the social media bandwagon in a big way.