The Arrest
A person was arrested by a the social media law enforcement officer who had a warrant for the arrest due to probable cause of a social media campaign crime. “I told my manager that he would get great ROI, and that is exactly what he got, 500 new Twitter followers and 1000 more Facebook likes, and 50 Pinterest re-pins. Sounded like great ROI to me”. The arresting officer noted that the defendant was clearly hallucinating.
Preliminary Hearing
The social media judge heard evidence and testimony from witnesses called by the prosecuting attorney and the defendant’s attorney. The defendant pleaded to the judge. “I created 5 social media accounts just for this campaign. I created my own domain names and the accounts were up and running days before the campaign was about to start. Who needs the digital support teams and all the experts? It was so easy for me to create the accounts, so where was the risk that everyone keeps talking about?”. Upon hearing this, the judge determined that there was enough evidence to believe the defendant probably committed the crime. The defendant was held for trial in the superior social media court, and an arraignment date was set.
The Arraignment
At the arraignment, the defendant entered a plea of not guilty so the judge set a trial date. The defendant screamed loudly in court “I am not the only one doing this you know, there are 100s of us out there. Social media is the in thing to do these days, and it has no connection to business outcomes. It’s a numbers game. I could have brought fake fans, how about that huh”.
The Trial
The prosecuting attorney was the “Social Media Jedi” and he made the opening statement. “You had misaligned expectations about where social media fitted into the sales funnel. I saw that you did have some leads from Twitter and LinkedIn. So why not report on cost per lead? You used Google analytics premium but you only measured last-click attribution. You had several models to choose from and could have included Social into your results by using one of the other attribution models like time decay or creating a custom one”.
The prosecuting attorney continued, “Why oh why did the defendant not read the 5 Steps to Calculate Social Media ROI Using Google Analytics by Rebecca Murtagh. What was his excuse? Assisted Social Conversions identify visitors from a social referral source that do not result in a conversion during their first visit, but do convert during a later visit to the website. Did the defendant forget about about the reduction in cost per new customer acquisition and customer lifetime value (CLV)?”
The Verdict
The trial was short but there were numerous interruptions like spontaneous laughter from a group of CRM experts in the court room, and a short sit in protest by a “Be free to use SEO to drive social” protest group. Eventually the foreman presented a written verdict to the judge. The social media clerk read out the jury’s verdict to the court. “Guilty of all charges”. The court then entered a judgment based on the verdict.
The sentencing was likely to include a stay in the famous social media jail, where the motto was “there is always room for one more”. Extra to do items would most likely include tasks like:
- Reading books about ROI
- Attending webinars about social media
- Arranging a subscription to eMarketer and a Forrester seat for “Interactive Marketing Professional”
- Watching YouTube videos about social media,
- Spending 1 in 4 weeks with the company social media team for 3 months.
- Reading Altimeter group blog posts
Have you been in social media jail yet?
Did you over promise on what the results would be from your social media activities and campaigns? Are you trying to gain leads and insights with your social media efforts? Are you looking beyond just the basics of clicks and likes? No? Remember that in social media jail the motto is “there is always room for one more”.
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