Social Less Than Super

It is the Monday after the Super Bowl. One city is thrilled, one city is miserable and a bunch of cities in between had no emotional stake in it whatsoever unless you consider the office pool to be such an investment. On Super Bowl Sunday, the main attraction is the game itself but it is also that special day when advertisers pull out all the stops to score a brand awareness touchdown. Last night, those stops included social media. Audi sought to drive results, pun very much intended, by incorporating a Twitter hashtag at the end of its minute-long commercial. YouTube and Facebook continued their practice of having users vote for their favorite ads. Call it the Super Engagement Bowl! But now it's time for some Monday Morning Quarterbacking courtesy of a new study from ForeSee Results.

The report found that only 5% of people visiting retail sites were directed there by social networks. Instead, search and email marketing initiatives were more likely to drive relevant user traffic to these sites. This illustrates a point this blog has made on several occasions. Social media is only as good as the performance marketing expertise behind it. A pretty Facebook wall, a fun Twitter feed or a video-filled You Tube account may make you think you are an active social media maven but these alone will do nothing for your bottom line. Success for a social media campaign should not be reaction-based. Success must be results-based.

It's too early to tell if Audi will profit from its hashtag ad or if the winning Facebook and YouTube spots will realize a significant sales boost. In the meantime, here's a little analogy marketers should keep top of mind. In every football game, a coach will make a call that will have fans cheering wildly or pulling their hair out. But if the play call manages to produce the desired result, a score or better still a win, it achieved the ultimate goal. To quote Lombardi - the coach and perhaps Tom Brady's favorite play - 'Winning isn't everything - it's the only thing.' When only 5% of Internet users are effectively leveraging social media, winning seems further away than many of us would care to admit.