The Evolving Business Value of Social Media
▼ Summary
– Only 44% of marketing leaders consider their teams experts at measuring social media’s business value, yet 80% are shifting funds from traditional channels to social.
– Most leaders define social ROI using engagement (68%) and conversion (65%) metrics, with only 57% tying it directly to revenue.
– Incompatibility between social media tools and broader martech stacks is the top barrier to understanding social’s impact, cited by over half of leaders.
– Executive support is critical for prioritizing analytics infrastructure and enabling teams to measure social’s value more effectively and creatively.
– Instead of focusing on posting volume, teams should prioritize intentional experiments and data storytelling to prove social drives loyalty and growth.
Determining the precise business value of social media remains one of the most persistent challenges for modern marketers. While there’s widespread belief in its potential, proving social media ROI continues to elude many organizations. A recent industry report reveals that just 44% of marketing leaders consider their teams experts in measuring social’s impact, yet 80% are shifting budgets from traditional channels toward social anyway. This gap between intuition and evidence underscores a critical need for better frameworks and tools.
Carmen Vicente, Social Media Manager at Gorgias, emphasizes that social media’s value is anything but static. “Social moves fast, and our measurement approaches must keep up,” she notes. In her view, treating ROI as a fixed target is a mistake. Instead, her team treats it as an ongoing conversation, refining their methods each quarter to align with broader business goals.
Many marketing leaders acknowledge that social drives brand awareness, but in today’s crowded digital environment, top-of-funnel metrics alone aren’t enough. Over half believe social influences customer acquisition, loyalty, and revenue, yet they lack confidence in their ability to directly connect social efforts to these outcomes. Most still rely on engagement (68%) and conversion rates (65%) to gauge success, while only 57% tie social activities directly to revenue.
Vicente points out that measurement philosophies often differ by sector. In B2C, emotional storytelling and engagement often take center stage. In B2B, however, data is king. “If you can’t link your work to revenue,” she says, “it’s difficult to demonstrate organization-wide impact.”
One major obstacle is the persistent use of outdated measurement models. Customer journeys today are non-linear, influenced by social search and community interactions, phenomena that traditional attribution systems struggle to capture. Vicente compares the effort to “trying to push a square peg into a round hole.” Social media, she argues, is an “amorphous blob” that resists neat categorization.
Technology also plays a role. More than half of marketing leaders cite poor integration between social media management tools and their broader martech stack as the primary barrier to understanding social’s impact. Fewer than half embed social data into their CRM systems, leaving social teams in a difficult position: they need both better tools and stronger executive support to drive integration.
When leaders prioritize analytics infrastructure, progress follows. Teams that excel at proving social’s value typically use advanced management and reporting tools and enjoy greater confidence from leadership. Executive buy-in, Vicente confirms, is transformative. “At Gorgias, our CMO encourages experimentation. We measure based on campaigns and projects, not just impressions. That freedom lets me act strategically, not fearfully.”
Internal communication is another hurdle. While digital marketing teams regularly use social insights, leaders want other departments, like customer success and business development, to do the same. This requires social marketers to become skilled data storytellers, translating complex metrics into compelling narratives for cross-functional audiences.
Contrary to popular belief, doing more isn’t always better. Many leaders push for increased publishing volume, but data tells a different story: even as posting frequency declined recently, engagement rose by nearly 20%. Audiences crave authenticity and community, not content for content’s sake. Vicente advises focusing on quality over quantity: “Meet your customers where they are. Don’t spread yourself too thin.”
Small, intentional experiments can yield powerful insights. At Gorgias, a modest employee advocacy pilot with just 20 participants generated over one million impressions in a single quarter, becoming the company’s most successful social initiative. This kind of tested, data-backed approach helps make the case for broader investment and innovation.
Ultimately, defining the business value of social media isn’t about finding a universal formula. It’s about building a flexible, evolving framework tailored to your organization’s unique goals. By embracing experimentation, improving tool integration, and strengthening internal storytelling, teams can move beyond outdated models and demonstrate how social media genuinely drives loyalty and growth.
(Source: Sprout Social)
