Social Media Expands Within Marketing Teams While ROI Challenges Remain

The 2016 “State of Social Marketing” report from Simply Measured recently found that 63 percent of marketing organizations now have social media teams (up from 49 percent a year ago). However, measuring ROI has been labeled as the biggest challenge for the vast majority.

Specifically, more than 61 percent of surveyed respondents claim that measuring ROI is their top challenge. Only 9 percent say they can quantify revenue driven by social media efforts.

Overall, nearly half of respondents (45.5 percent) stated that they could not quantify the revenue attributable to social media. Securing budget (38 percent), tying social to business goals (33 percent) and tracking results (27 percent) were also named top obstacles by social media marketers.

“While the level of sophistication among social marketers has continued to grow, this greater sophistication doesn’t mean its evolution is complete,” wrote the authors of the report.

Most of the marketers surveyed (56 percent) said that they use engagement metrics to gauge social media success. Conversion and revenue metrics, as well as amplification and brand awareness metrics, were also used to determine whether social media goals have been achieved.

Marketers to Maintain Investment in Social Media Marketing

As previous research shows, social media ROI has been a consistent challenge for marketers. “The CMO Survey” published earlier in 2016 indicated that 40 percent of marketers believe social media’s contribution to their organization’s success has been “below average.” Only 10 percent said it’s “above average.”

However, this has not discouraged social media marketers. The survey found that social media spend will account for 20.9 percent of marketing budgets within the next five years.