Proving the ROI of social media

by Robin Grant in News on 20 October 2009 at 16:13 Google+

As I’ve mentioned before, measuring the ROI of social media on a campaign level is pretty tricky and as Sandrine pointed out a couple of weeks ago, companies may need to take a long term view in order to fully reap the benefits of social media.

However, in theory, working out the ROI of a social media programme is easy (assuming you’re measuring it over a long enough time period), as Olivier Blanchard shows us in this presentation:

Of course, there’s a lot more more to it in practice (even without resorting to econometrics, which is of course why our consultancy services may come in handy):

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  • http://renaissancechambara.jp/2009/10/21/links-of-the-day-304/ renaissance chambara alias Ged Carroll – Links of the day

    [...] Proving the ROI of social media [...]

  • EdL

    Any thoughts on the potential lag between investment and ROI?

  • SocialSteve

    Great job capturing reality on a topic so many have debated.

    Social Steve

  • http://www.digitisedculture.com djlazarides

    Sums it all up – Brilliant!

    Dan

  • martinehunter

    Brilliant illustration. The light came on for me with the examples of non-financial impact. It's so easy to get excited about comments and unique visitors. Benchmarking is key also. You must know your stats when you began. After a year of active inbound marketing we've received more sales calls recently with no discernible source. We're attributing it to our social media, but can't pinpoint it to one source. I'm benchmarking going forward. Thanks for the clarity.

  • http://workingnotes2.wordpress.com/2009/10/21/links-for-2009-10-21/ links for 2009-10-21 « Working Notes 2.0

    [...] Proving the ROI of social media / we are social Brief pointers to what to look for re ROI – but the real point is the embedded preso – wonderful use of film stills + speech bubbles!! (tags: ROI socialmedia research) [...]

  • http://www.ukcopywriting.com/ukcopywriting/?p=181 UK Copywriting » Social Media? Yeah but what about ROI?

    [...] the question in the eye. It’s an intelligent and considered response. Thanks Olivier. We Are Social seem to like what he’s saying.  Do you? What do you look for in your SMM? Which needles are [...]

  • http://theoriginaljr.com contactjr

    This is great. Page 33 says it all “Non-financial impact is not ROI (yet)”

    Hopefully, the ability to put forth a credible perspective on ROI of social marketing will be what separates the wheat from the chaff amongst the various “social media experts” and “social media consultants” out there…

    @contactjr

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=654356748 facebook-654356748

    Hey Robin – I went to a great talk by Marshall Manson from Edleman and he discussed how it may be impossible, or at least unwise, to attached certain meanings to every social metric we have. He suggested that sometimes it may simple be enough to demonstrate that there has been a positive outcome (more visitors, more page hits, more comments) but that it wasn't necessarily worth trying to relate these to direct financial gains. It's a really interesting situation the more I think about it – the buzz is Social Media, clients all want it and agencies all want to provide it. Yet there are few solid examples of direct product/brand gains being attributable to Social Media (simply due to Social Media never being delivered in isolation of other channels). I really would love to see a glimpse of 5 to 10 years time.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=654356748 facebook-654356748

    Hey Robin – I went to a great talk by Marshall Manson from Edleman and he discussed how it may be impossible, or at least unwise, to attached certain meanings to every social metric we have. He suggested that sometimes it may simple be enough to demonstrate that there has been a positive outcome (more visitors, more page hits, more comments) but that it wasn't necessarily worth trying to relate these to direct financial gains. It's a really interesting situation the more I think about it – the buzz is Social Media, clients all want it and agencies all want to provide it. Yet there are few solid examples of direct product/brand gains being attributable to Social Media (simply due to Social Media never being delivered in isolation of other channels). I really would love to see a glimpse of 5 to 10 years time.

  • http://wearesocial.net/blog/2009/12/social-blog-2009/ The best of the We Are Social blog, 2009 / we are social

    [...] Proving the ROI of social media A post looking at how you might go about proving the ROI of social media activities, containing Olivier Blanchard’s brilliant presentation on the subject along with a few thoughts of my own. [...]