Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici

Difficulties in measuring traditional ROI pose a dilemma for businesses to invest in social media. CEOs want to see social media ROI on bottom lines before they are prepared to take social media seriously. Unsurprisingly, some CEOs still think social media is nonsense.

On the other hand, recent developments in social media promise direct purchases and conversions. For this reason, marketers feel optimistic about the odds of measuring traditional ROI in the near future. However, much of social media’s role today for marketers still lie in monitoring and listening to relevant conversations, generating leads, analysing brand sentiment, obtaining product feedback, providing customer service and the like.

Evidently, none of these functions seem to impact profits directly. None of them spell lead conversion. But businesses that win at social couldn’t have invested in social media if they didn’t see value in it. So why are they spending so much time, money and effort at social?

Here’s the truth.

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