Blog Single Author Small

STATS: 84% of Social Media Programs Don’t Measure ROI

We talk a lot about the rapid adoption of social media in a wide array of industries. According to an August 2009 survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, 86% of professionals in a variety fields said that they have adopted social media in some way.

While the survey results are great in that they indicate an enhanced role social media in many industries, it also indicated that some professionals or companies are adopting social technologies without having a way to actually measure how effective or useful the measures actually are. In fact, 84% of respondents said they don’t currently measure the ROI (return on investment) of their social media programs.

Even less encouraging, more than 40% of respondents said they didn’t even know whether they could track ROI from their social tools. This is worrisome because it indicates that industries and professionals are adopting technology without actually taking into account how it will impact their business and what value it will add.

It’s easy to say, “social media will improve customer retention” — and in fact that might be true for a number of businesses, but without proper ways to measure how these tools work, making them more effective and efficient becomes difficult. Moreover, without having an ROI strategy in place, businesses might be more willing to drop social technologies or treat them as a short-term fad. For social media and social technology to really work, businesses need to be able to measure its impact, positive and negative.

How do you or your businesses monitor your social media ROI? If you don’t measure your ROI from social media, why not?

Originally posted on Mashable by Christina Warren