Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Coca-cola finds online buzz has no measurable short-term sales impact, but digital display ads work about as well as TV.

Study finds online buzz has no measurable impact on short-term sales, but online display ads work about as well as TV, said a company executive in a presentation at the Advertising Research Foundation's Re:think 2013 conference in New York today. It's a stunning admission for a company who's flagship brand has 61.5 million fans, more than any other brand on Facebook.

But Eric Schmidt, senior manager-marketing strategy and insights at Coca-Cola, isn't giving up on buzz just yet. And he cautioned against reading too much into the research, noting that it covers only buzz, not sharing, video views or other aspects of social media. But when Coca-Cola put buzz sentiment data into the same analytical framework it uses to evaluate other digital media, Mr. Schmidt said, "We didn't see any statistically significant relationship between our buzz and our short-term sales."...

The reaction on Twitter to major political events and policy decisions often differs a great deal from public opinion as measured by surveys. This is the conclusion of a year-long Pew Research Center study that compared the results of national polls to the tone of tweets in response to eight major news events, including the outcome of the presidential election, the first presidential debate and major speeches by Barack Obama.

At times the Twitter conversation is more liberal than survey responses, while at other times it is more conservative. Often it is the overall negativity that stands out. Much of the difference may have to do with both the narrow sliver of the public represented on Twitter as well as who among that slice chose to take part in any one conversation....

Heavy usage of one of the top 3 media (by reach) does not necessarily mean that less time is spent with the other media,according to results from an Edison Research and Arbitron study.

The study looks at self-reported average time per day spent with the internet, TV, and radio, sorting the results by heavy users of each. Heavy internet users (4+ hours per day) report spending more than 7 hours per day on the internet – but the amount of time they spend watching TV (3:35 vs. 3:33) and listening to the radio (2:07 vs. 2:04) is on par with the general population....

Social media is full of numbers, but most of the time we don't use them in any actionable way. The reason is simple: Social metrics are often too complicated to understand, and they provide few clues on how we can improve our success. The reality is that the return on social media marketing can vary widely for each business.

Some companies see quick and immediate returns, while others fail to see much of anything at all. What could the problem be? And, more important, how can we be sure that our business won't fail online? This article looks to answer those questions by offering a few quick-and-dirty methods for gauging your online marketing strengths and weaknesses....