The question itself is a very fair one. It's wise for anyone who launches a new marketing campaign to determine how they are going to measure its effectiveness. Where I often get into more challenging discussions about ROI is when I state that I don't think social media needs to be, nor necessarily should be, measured monetarily.Let me ask you a question. Do you categorize the quality of your personal relationships by who gives you the most things or do you categorize the quality of your relationships based on whose company you enjoy the most. I imagine you use the latter as a "system of relationship measurement". And guess what? Your friends probably evaluate their relationships with you the same way. Each of you value your relationships with one another because you both enjoy what the other has to offer. You probably have fun together, share common interests, etc. And if one of you asked the other for a favor, you'd be more likely to respond positively to that request based on the strength of your relationship with the person making the ask.
Social media is no different. There doesn't have to be an immediately quantifiable monetary reward to determine if your social media strategies are paying dividends. Not that your social media strategies shouldn't ultimately be leading to increased sales...of course they should! But the stronger your relationship with your constituents, the much more likely they will be to purchase your product or service. A strong relationship equates to a greater potential for brand loyalty and customer conversion or retention.
Remember the catch phrase from the movie Field of Dreams: "If you build it, he will come"? That's how you should think about your social media efforts. If you build a relationship with your customers and prospects, they will come. But you have to focus on building the relationship, not selling the product. That means giving them something of value, not just promoting your products and services. IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU!
Communicate with them. Build an online community of people who show an interest in a topic related to your products and services and reward them for doing so. That reward can be offered in many ways. Maybe its an exclusive discount, maybe its free stuff, but more likely it's going to be strong and compelling content that they find interesting, entertaining or informative. By doing so, they will begin to view you and/or your company as a trusted resource, thus deepening your relationship with them and making them more likely to become an advocate for you. How far down the customer lifecycle is advocacy? It's the third step in the RETENTION lifecycle, which is the ideal customer. Now assuming that basic marketing principles hold true, an advocate is not only going to purchase more from you, but he/she is also going to tell their friends to purchase more from you.
Therefore, before you launch your next social media campaign, don't ask yourself how it can increase sales. Ask yourself what you can offer your stakeholders that they will find compelling enough to keep them coming back for more. The primary system of short term and mid term social media measurement should be social media retention rates, not sales.
If you focus on building relationships, the sales will come. If you focus on sales, you'll be selling to an empty room.
