November 19th, 2008
Social media marketers can - and must - prove ROI
Guest editorial by Kyle Flaherty
“In today’s uncertain economic times…” those five words seemingly lead off many of the emails I’ve received over the past several weeks, mainly from PR folks pitching me different products and services. I can’t really blame them; of course the economy is on everyone’s mind and will be for the foreseeable future. I’ve also seen these words attached to many blog posts from social media type bloggers either worried that this will be the death of social media or simply the dawning of a new era of transparency and community engagement (the dramatic effect is all mine). This post is a warning for folks that they need to end their debating before they are fired, or as we like to call it during these times “downsized.” A better way to say it is how my CEO put it recently during a company meeting: now is not the time to turtle, now is the time to stick your neck out and move forward.
The question is not whether you should or shouldn’t deploy social media strategy during a recession, this simply isn’t smart thinking. Instead, everyone needs to be creating and tracking proof that any and all of their job functions are leading to business and determining how much business they must win in 2009 to succeed. That includes social media. There is no better way to lose a job than to spend all your time telling your boss the company needs a Twitter account versus showing your boss how you directly helped bring in revenue last quarter.
Let’s assume you are in a marketing, PR or product-marketing role for an emerging-growth or start-up company, because that is what I know the most about, here is my advice:
Do NOT ask “How will the economy affect social media?”
DO ask “How can I prove and then improve how social media affects my business?”
Yes, Virginia there is Social Media ROI
Now here is where you say something along the lines of “BUT everyone tells me you can’t measure social media ROI” and I tell you “you need to find a way ASAP”. The social media ROI debate that seems to be raging throughout the interwebs seems to conclude that proving social media ROI is at worst an affront to the “Cluetrain Manifesto” or at best something that can not be done. If you believe in either I’m afraid you are already turtling; come out of that shell and let’s chat. Not only can you measure social media against business benchmarks, more importantly you MUST in this economic environment. Let’s use a pretty picture next:
Next: How do you determine your social media ROI? –>
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Jennifer Leggio, aka "Mediaphyter," writes about the "social business" side of social media - including enterprise, security and reputation issues. See her full profile and disclosure of her industry affiliations.
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