The US Thanksgiving holiday saw a report from IBM telling us that social media referrals had a minimal impact on sales. We’ve been here before, in October a Forrester analyst claimed the same thing, in response to which I wrote this post.
In his Wall Street Journal article, Tom Gara (as an aside worth following for a good source of info about the Middle East) said that this will need “some serious spinning by social media gurus.” Sadly, I’m not a guru, but the presentation above is my take on an ever-present issue.
The key point for me? The concept of looking at social media through the first and not the last click. So, if you are going to be measuring social media by trying to draw a direct line from tweet to sale, that’s not going to work. Instead, the decision making process will start with seeing a tweet, then you might do a Google search, then you will read some reviews, then you might ask your Facebook friends what they think and so on.
NB, I post less frequently here now. My new website, devoted to all things visual social media is here.
Related articles
