Arguably the three most important letters in business are ROI. Up to relatively recently, this acronym was applied to the key metric of calculating the benefit (return) of an investment. But in communication planning, return nowadays has a much wider bearing on measuring media effectiveness.
We think there are another four “returns” that contribute to return on investment.
1. From a purist media planning point of view return on attention assesses the means to seize attention, hold it and then measure the activities that are created. In old fashioned money this is share of voice or share of mind.
2. The second return is that of engagement – the duration of time spent participating either through conversations or the creation of social collateral such as user generated content. This return has significant ramifications relating to media value. With skip-able ads becoming the norm the belief that all of a 30” commercial is watched can no longer be relied upon.
3. Not only do we need to calculate the duration of conversations but also their intensity. A metric is needed to measure the value of the time spent participating in social conversations and how many touch-points are interacted with.
4. And lastly, return on trust as a way of measuring customer loyalty and the likelihood for referrals, the state of trust earned mainly in social media and the prospect of generating advocacy and how it impacts on future business.
Measuring the returns in social media and to some extent the wider digital world is tricky but certainly achievable, however calculating them in relation to off line is far more challenging and needs an econometric modelling approach.
Ian Prager
Planning Director
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