I don’t know Olivier Blanchard personally. I follow him on Twitter and like “The Brand Builder” on Facebook. That’s the extent of our relationship, and it is decidedly one-sided. He has not asked me to write this, and has not approached me to say nice things about him. In fact, I doubt he’s even aware of me. I think that’s important for you to know before you read the rest of this post.
I missed the #sxsmroi panel at South By Southwest Interactive on Monday afternoon. I was not pleased about this, but you know. Work and stuff.
Social Media ROI is something I struggle with. Really, the whole measurement thing is my glaring weak spot in the communications world.
I’m not proud of that, and I know it is something I need to work on, but it’s one of those things that hovers on my “to do” list, never really making much progress.
I read this post by Olivier Blanchard on Monday night, and it put something into perspective for me: it’s not OK for me to simply say, “I need to improve in this area” anymore.
I’m committing today to becoming a professional in the area of ROI. That doesn’t mean I’ll ever rival Brian Solis, or Olivier Blanchard, or the proprietor of this digital publication.
It does mean I’m going to read everything I can find on the topic, starting with Olivier’s book and every post he mentions ROI in on his blog. Because I’m not providing the maximum amount of value to my clients if I’m not knowledgable in this area.
I know that your social media efforts must be tied to your business goals and help support those goals, but that’s no longer enough for me.
I want to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem any longer.
I finally found my 2012 resolution, just a few months late. I’m excited to being exploring this topic and to become someone people seek out to test their thoughts against.
Image: Beth Kanter via Cambodia4Kids.org via Flickr CC 3.0
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I am very skeptical about tracking ROI on social media campaigns. I feel the same way about broadcast. We can argue/discuss/debate about whether you can track post click conversions and I’ll always point out that I wipe out the cookies in my browser on a regular basis.
I know that I am not the only one to do this. So you might not know that the reason I visited/purchased something from your client is because of a campaign that ended 90 days ago.
@TheJackB Completely understand. But to say there’s zero fiscal value to be attached to social media campaigns can’t be true either, right?
Interesting indeed and there will be a day it is more measurable. Howie has a pretty good handle on it and a lot of the social measurements are nebulous at best in terms of equating it to real value. However, there is still enough ‘feel’ good to some of it that drives some type of value.
Good luck in your efforts; I’m sure we will hear about your progress.
@jocmbarnett Thanks for the RT, John!
@mattlacasse Sure thing, Matt. Enjoyed the post & struggle with measurement too. One of the reasons I enjoy @Shonali’s blog
@jocmbarnett No doubt. I keep hoping I can soak up @shonali’s knowledge by osmosis…has yet to happen. Let’s go scientists.
@mattlacasse LOL! We’ll make a measurement maven out of you yet. @jocmbarnett
@jocmbarnett And I hit “send” before replying to this. What a nice thing to say, thank you! @MattLaCasse
@shonali Quite welcome! cc @jocmbarnett
@shonali hey, how’s your day going?
@kmueller62 Quite brilliant. :) You?
@shonali doing ok. pretty tired
@kmueller62 Get some rest!
@shonali trying
@BeckyGaylord Thanks Becky! Glad you enjoyed the read.
@mattlacasse Yep, your post and Olivier’s were undoubtedly hard for some to read but told the raw, hard truth. cc: @thebrandbuilder
@BeckyGaylord Thanks! I’ve always prided myself on being as honest as I can. @thebrandbuilder
Great resolution! ROI is an area I also lack sufficient knowledge and it really is something we all should know. I hope you share your findings with us.
http://www.stevencoylepr.com
@StevenInPR I plan on it, Steven. I think it’d be a great way to hold myself accountable and make sure I follow through.
OK first off…..Olivier is a great guy and you can learn much more from him in one day than Brian Solis could teach you in a year (sorry but I am not impressed with anything I have ever read from Brian).
But here is why this post and your goal is REALLY important Matt. The CFO who decides budgets and normally favors Direct Sales (measurable), Operations (Measurable), R&D (Measurable) investments vs Marketing/PR/Advertising (Really hard to measure). When the VPs all submit their budget requests and all can show proof of ROI and Marketing/PR/Advertising can not guess who get’s the resources?
Social is really hard to measure because it is very subjective. What is a social mention worth? A follow or like? Coverage in an article (easier to measure). Can you connect Social Activity to sales or a dollar number? (really hard).
My point is if your goal is to work in the Social Media arena and need to prove money being spent is worthwhile ROI is really important. Finance peeps like me are going to crunch like crazy and you have to have proof I can’t deny you resources.
The goal of the CFO is to allocate resources that will bring the highest return (They use Net Present Value – NPV or Internal Rate of Return – IRR). So welcome to my world and may the ROI force be with you!
@HowieSPM Thanks for the encouragement, Howie. For too long, I’ve lived in this bubble of “ROI of your mother” mindset. Which DOES play a part in social ROI in my mind, but that doesn’t mean we can’t put all of those data into some kind of meaningful order. I’m truly looking forward to this. I’ll have to keep writing posts to hold myself accountable to making progress.
@MattLaCasse coming from the finance/sales side I will say you can’t put ROI on everything. Somethings have mysterious values that are very valuable. These are subjective and you can work on those numbers with the stakeholders. If the CFO knows how you came up with a $0.18 value for each twitter follower and agrees with it even if not accurate you have a baseline and can always change it later.
@HowieSPM These are the things I need to know, and become better at. I’m terrible at putting value on something like a “like” or a “follow” or whatever.
Great stuff, Matt, and this is an area I need to work on as well, and have been studying as well. It’s quite a murky thing in the social media realm. We’ll have to compare notes some time.
@KenMueller I look forward to it, Ken. I’ve felt like a sham when it comes to this topic for a while. It’s time to take the bull by the horns and make some change.
@MattLaCasse @KenMueller see Matt you can teach uhm…young dogs new tricks!
@HowieSPM @KenMueller If I’m young, then why don’t I FEEL young?! All perspective my friend. :)