There was an interesting discussion in the IoD LinkedIn Group this week titled ‘Is Social Media failing’, which as certainly sparked a debate.

Recent figures released by the IAB (prepared by PWC) demonstrate that social media is showing a rapid growth.  Budgets for social media increased  by 200% in 2010 vs 2009.

A recent article by AdAge shows that some big brands have not seen ROI on the social media campaigns:

• Pepsi has fallen to third place behind Diet Coke in spite of its widely heralded switch from Super Bowl ads to a huge social charity program called Refresh Project.

• Burger King has grilled through a couple of CMOs and fired agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky after producing Facebook campaigns and viral videos that got lots of attention while the business witnessed six consecutive quarters of declining sales.

What are the reasons why these campaigns haven’t succeeded?

Buy in from key influencers in the organisation – unless there is buy in from the senior management team to manage and run a social media campaign it won’t be a success.  Social media is a disruptive technology as it fundamentally changes business processes, communications and approach to engaging with their customers & community.  Lip service cannot be paid to this, as people will see through this.  Being transparent, proactive and honest is paramount to building the trust and credibility

Aligning social media with business goals – when thinking about what the metrics of success are, these need to be aligned with the business goals.  Just partaking blogging, twitter and forums is not going to drive ROI.  Engaging with a purpose is key.  Whether that’s changing the sentiments of the mentions of the brand online, building an email database, driving more sales or building awareness of the brand – these are all business goals which translate into the fundamental building stones of the campaign.

Not using the right approach – social media isn’t right for every business. Depending on whether you are a B2C or B2B brand will drive which sites you partake in. Even then, there are industries which are more challenging to engage with the customers and community.

Engaging with the lurkers – there are a silent majority of users out there who monitor Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook who don’t engage with what you are saying. That doesn’t mean they aren’t listening to read what you’re writing. Therefore how do you measure the overall engagement of your readership of your blog and tweets if you can’t calculate the reach or impact that you’re having? Social media metrics are becoming to stand the test of time but technology and  measurability of social media are lagging behind.