Social media ROI: 10 companies that made it work

The question of whether or not social media drives return on investment (ROI) still plagues many marketers and brands.

The issue is not always as straightforward as it seems. There are multiple ways to measure the benefits of social media, and it isn’t as simple as looking for a direct sales return at one end with social media input at the other. You need smart tracking and measuring to fully capture the benefits of a social media campaign. While looking for direct ROI is one way to do it, there are other values to measure social media marketing.

I’ve put together a list of case studies that prove the ROI of social media through direct monetary return, customer loyalty, repeat traffic and more.

1. Social media outperforms banner ads

An excellent way of ascertaining the value of social media is to look at how it performs compared with more established channels or advertising methods, such as banner ads. While you can’t compare on a pure cost basis, you can look at how both perform in terms of the quality of traffic they drive to your site.