South African brands have settled into the reality that social media is a critical part of the communications mix and, as such, are placing greater emphasis on creating and managing content.
This shift, together with the move by more companies into the B2B social media space, has created the need to revisit what social media success means.
"Initial uncertainty relating to platform adoption resulted in measures of success that were purely vanity," says Tom Manners, MD at Clockwork Media. "At the time, we heard a lot of talk about the number of likes, the size of social media communities and so on."
Different measures are now required to gauge the return on investment for social media initiatives, and this is what Manners will concentrate on during his presentation at the upcoming ITWeb Social Media Summit 2014 in Johannesburg later this month.
"Today, clients are realising that it's less about volume and more about quality. Creating great content is now attracting a lot of attention, and in the B2B space, clients are turning their attention towards more measurable demand generation elements," say Manners.
Content aside, social media marketers also need to understand how to measure the impact of B2B campaigns as opposed to B2C initiatives.
"B2C conversations are generally directed towards much larger interest groups, so measurement is often related to volume, share of voice and impact. The B2B environment is quite different in that you might only be talking to 20 or 30 people, but if done in the right way, this can generate huge revenue. Here, measurement needs to be more closely tuned to the expectations of the audience and how they react directly to the message," he adds.
Manners will be among 20 subject matter experts at the summit, who will cover a comprehensive range of social media issues. Click here to find out more about the ITWeb Social Media Summit 2014, view the full agenda and register your seat.
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