Is social media unmeasurable media?

Friends,

I would like your feedback on whether you see social media as unmeasurable media. If so that do, how many of you fall in the camp of direct marketers that only run measurable media, so therefore, you wont run social media into your mix OR are you in the camp of running unmeasurable media as it is part of a layered communications mix that at the end of the day creates a blended average cost per rental.

I read an interesting blog post today by Seth Godin (some people love this guy, I actually dont read his work that often, but this post caught my attention). Here is the link to his article: sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/10...easurable-media.html

Thanks,
Carmen

I love Oliver Blanchard's blogs...here is a link to one of his blogs on measuring social media marketing ROI. Now he is not at all involved within the Multihousing Industry, but you can follow and apply what he has to say to our market. He has very interesting charts and tips that I use when producing a marketing strategy that includes social media to show the value to my owners.

thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com search for "back by popular demand" or Social Media ROI. I believe the article was written in July of this year.

thanks! I will look into it. So Shawn, it would be okay to say that you lean on measured results through social media? and what types of benchmarks are you focused on measuring?

My input is probably not helpful to you, but how do you measure word of mouth? I would say that social media is along that vein. You measure with your ears...if it gets more people talking about you then it is working. We've started about three months ago and the residents and staff are talking about what we've posted. Hopefully, it will spiral out from there.

My two cents, hopefully it's helpful:

Here's the problem. Unmeasurable media is referring (in my mind) to not being able to measure direct impact sales. After all, tracking measurable media data will always boil down to the sale increases or decrease it has lead to.

I think Seth nailed the thought process of a lot of traditional marketers when he said "One school of thought is to measure everything. If you can't measure it, don't do it". Despite popular opinion, there are TONS of ways measure your interaction and engagement with social media but it's hard to determine the direct, short-term impact it's had on final sales- and that's what a lot of people want to see. A sort of "Tactic A lead to X amount of sales" type of equation.

Remember that social media is about engagement and conversation- not selling your product and total self promotion.

Hey Eric! I think your thought process is spot on. One thing though that I see differently is that social media can be measurable when you look at it from a direct marketing standpoint and not just on a word of mouth brand advertising effort. For example, look at Wal-mart retail. It just launched the wal-mart deal of the week program. Each week, they update their fans to showcase what they think is the deal of the week. If enough people "like" that deal (not the actual like) (and they can track this), then the deal is on. I've run a number of campaigns for clients that have generated into referrals, leads and leases via FB. We are selling via social media (hallelujah) WHILE still engaging (another hallelujah). It is a matter of how you package it in the end that leads to delivering a comprehensive program. For anyone that tells you that social media for business is just about engagement needs to be questioned.

Social media has become a very big thing for our company. In fact, our entire Southwest region is on board with utilizing all sorts of social media for advertising and helping to create an online connection with our residents. We have gone so far as to create what we call "Social Media Players". Our SMP group is made up of leasing staff, leasing managers, managers, and higher-ups in the company. We get together every other month in Houston and talk about trends in social media and how we can expand our use. Since implementation in our region, we've definitely started to "build a brand" for ourselves and get our name all over the internet. I have seen us begin to fill apartments through word of mouth and through Facebook. I think that social media is a really big part of what's to come! If you are not already head-first into it, I suggest you start now!

Now that is cool. The idea of creating the right brand is critical for your companies' overall marketing/advertising/leasing efforts. Branding doesn't stop on the website or at the site level on print collateral. Nor should you rely on branding via template ILS's featured apartment listings. Will look to see how you are all doing and provide more insight.

Thanks Denny!