6 Must Read Posts about the ROI of Social Media

Here are six of the best posts I’ve read recently (and some not so recently) about the ROI of social media. I think while we’re all continuing to think a lot about this issue, it’s becoming less and less about simply proving our case to the powers that be and more and more about finding a simple, replicable system for what’s worth measuring and why. For the association industry, measuring engagement is one significant piece of this puzzle, but all nonprofits still have businesses to run and it’s worth having a look at what some smart people have said about it all.

These are in date order.

NTEN – The Three Dimensions of Social Media ROI

The BrandBuilder Blog – Defining Social Media ROI once and for all, and understanding the action-reactive-return narrative

Adam Cohen (A Thousand Cuts) – The Basics of Social Media ROI

Social Computing Journal – Measuring Social Media ROI: Does size matter?

BrandSavant – What’s Wrong With Social Media Marketing Strategy

Jacob Morgan – The Importance of a Social Media ROI Diagnostic

Let us know what you think of these, and if you have other links to share or ideas about how to measure the ROI (or ROE) of social media in a way that can be shared easily throughout the industry. I’m sure someone out there has had to do some kind of report for their Board where you had to organize all the quantitative and qualitative data in some way that makes a good business case… :)

UPDATE:- this post has, as of this writing, had over 7300 20,340 views on Social Media Today (typos and all – LOL!), and there are a bunch of comments over there (thank you!!) with more good links.  I also got a really good one via a message from the site which I want to repost here, and I’ll continue to add to this post if I see more on the next few days (or I’ll do another round later).

MUST READ – Stephen Debruyn – Measuring the ROI of Social Media Campaigns

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A good start to help you measure the unmeasurable -> 6 Must Read Posts about the #ROI of #SocialMedia (by @maddiegrant) http://bit.ly/2FSFYvvia uberVU

just wanted to say thanks for including me in this list, very much appreciated!

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Thanks for sharing these posts and information - very interesting how others are looking at this "elusive" area of social media. What strikes me as I follow more discussions about "how to measure" the success of social media is we I feel we are trying to measure something we already know how to measure.

Social media didn't change marketing, it just put it on steroids. Now the communication process has been accelerated by some really interesting "tools" and as such it has caused everyone to think differently. But what is social media really about anyway? Word-of-Mouth - end of story. It is about leveraging the most powerful tool any organization has tried to harness since the beginning.

It is still about getting more people to talk about you positively to their circle of influence and have them directly interact with you. If this is still the case, then whatever we used to measure Word-of-Mouth should work here -only faster. Something to consider when the tools will be changing faster than the seasons. Thanks for organizing.

Blaine
www.someexec.com

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Ahh I guess I didn't look at each post closely enough - I glanced at them quickly before sharing that link to make sure it wasn't a duplicate. Oops! But yes he definitely rocks and I think he's be a great speaker at ASAE. Showing actual, clear results would be so helpful for associations on the fence about getting involved in social media.

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Thanks Shannon! Yes thanks for that link, Olivier Blanchard's stuff totally rocks, that slideshow is in the Adam Cohen post. I wonder if we could get him to speak at ASAE for us on how this applies to associations... how cool would that be! Hmmm...

What great posts - thanks for sharing! Have you seen Olivier Blanchard's slideshow on social media ROI? I thought it was pretty informative. I just stumbled upon it yesterday:
http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2009/08/25/so...

Thanks very much for including my post in this list. There are a lot of folks talking about ROI - I'm hoping one day soon to be able to share more client examples. I would hope some companies actually share their numbers and the actual development of the business case so that people can understand this better.