Social Media ROI: Think of it as Pinball Marketing

Earlier today Brian Solis (right) published a blog called “ROI Doesn’t Mean Return on Ignorance.”

Fundamentally, the point of his blog was that, not only is it possible to measure returns on social media programs, but those programs should be planned from the outset to create measurable returns.

It’s a smart way to look at social media, but few companies are approaching it in this manner. And fewer still are doing it with much success.

That’s partly because social media programs are very early stage at most companies, and the managers of these programs are themselves only just learning how to put them together.

This situation is only compounded by the variety of social media tools on the market, and the dearth of solutions that allow them to aggregate and analyze information across these platforms. Without this capability, many corporate social media managers are having to improvise or, at best, borrow here and there from best practices that they have read about.

So they purchase or download blog tools, listening tools, broadcasting tools and SEO analysis tools. They set up matrices and Excel sheets to measure things they would like to see, like page hits and requests for information and white paper downloads and such. Then they turn on the tools and stare blankly as these systems quickly ramp to information overload stage.

One way to help these social media managers succeed is to explain what they are trying to achieve in simpler terms.

Like pinball.

Social media ROI is like playing pinball. Here’s how.

The strategy that you launch has to contain messaging that moves or motivates the reader into some sort of action. It could be anything – clicking on an RSS feed or a “Like” button, commenting, downloading an article or a photograph, whatever you decide is appropriate for your communications program.

You can set out as many of these “pins” as you like. Remember, in pinball, there are two ways to win: by getting as many points as you can, and by playing as long as you can. (Oh and by the way, there’s no way to lose.)

The same applies to social media. Every device that you can use to engage your audience in a beneficial way is a plus; similarly, the more you can keep your audience coming back — in the form of RSS feeds, subscriptions, discount tickets and engaging content, for example — the more chance you have of continuing that engagement and improving the relationship.

There doesn’t even have to be a logical flow to how the customer navigates your program. It can be completely random.  In fact, there are so many points of entry into the average social media progra m – a link from a Twitter feed, a “share” from a Facebook friend, or a URL in a LinkedIn discussion, etc. – that it’s nearly impossible to manage the flow of the interaction anyway.

And don’t wait until the end to reward them: Give them something all the way through the engagement. There’s a reason for all the bells, buzzers, whistles and lights in a pinball game; to keep it fun, entertaining, and engaging. To entice the player to return again and again.

Ultimately, you want to ensure that the customer has ample opportunity to be rewarded. Because in pinball, everyone wins.

When you plan your campaign this way, you’ve automatically set up any number of measurable points of engagement with your audience and you can measure their ongoing engagement as well. Further, you can strategize a campaign with a much longer lifetime if you keep in mind that your social media game plan is not a one-hit effort. Viral videos are nice, but you want people to keep coming back, too.

One caveat: It is possible to go overboard with a strategy like this, especially with a corporate social media program. You don’t want to alienate your audience by pushing too much at them. The key here is to keep in mind the context of your communications. If your program is being created for a county hospital, for example, you’re not likely to be creating daily giveaways or blogging about nurses’ fashions. But you can make your program bright, contemporary, and informative in a variety of ways, each of which constitute a measurable point of engagement.

Photos: Brian Solis; Wild Ride.