The Business End of Social Media ROI
By Jeffrey L. Cohen
Mon, Aug 31, 2009
Olivier Blanchard is on a mission to raise the business profile of Social Media. While everyone talks about social media and tries to justify the expense for social media programs, Olivier reminds us that ROI means “return on investment” and nothing else. The only way to measure social media return on investment is to look at the money spent on social media and compare it to the change in sales that can be attributed to social media. Company managers care about saving money and increasing sales. Those are the only places the return can come from. The days of warm fuzzy return from social media are over.
Below is the video of Olivier’s presentation at the Social Fresh confrence, as well as the slide deck of his presentation.
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Tags: brandbuilder, Olivier Blanchard, roi, social media
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Holy awesome, Batman! I had no idea anyone had filmed it. You rock! (Thanks for the kind words too.)
This is really good stuff, but I am still unconvinced. I think the shortfall in social media isn’t its ROI but is our ability to measure “attribution.” This boils down to the difference between short-term and long term results, and the cultural focus most corporations have on quarterly, or even annual, results. Plenty of companies are returning revenue on short-term social media sales efforts, but if we ignore lifetime customer value, or the value of word of mouth, we miss the real opportunity.
So instead, we need to think long term and distributed initiatives, estimate long-term and distributed value, and accept a degree of uncertainty.
And if there’s anything corporations have in common, it’s discomfort with uncertainty. So I say what social media fundamentally says is: Life is uncertain. Play your best guess, be patient, and build the case for the long term. Play the short returns, and you guarantee long-term failure.
Anyone else have a problem where the video stops/goes nuts at around 26:15?
Good food for thought tying into the presentation- wish I could see the vids, but flash doesn’t work on mobile-Ah the wonders of social media- we never know how.or whr our audience is.
Olivier – You rock. Great presentation, glad we can share it with others!
Ryan – My thought is that Olivier addressed both points you bring up. Regardless of the company measurable ROI, but their are also steps that build brand equity, customer confidence, etc. You have to measure and strive to achieve both. I don’t think measuring one means that you don’t care about the other.
Tyler – Video seems to be working fine for me.
Vickie – Please watch the video when you can, it is good stuff.
Well done. Very well done.
Here is another presentation, “Results 2.0,” about the myths and realities of Web 2.0 marketing:
http://www.slideshare.net/ICONiQ/results-20
Olivier’s is more fun, and more concrete though — a really good presentation.
Tyler, I’m definitely having the same problem with the video as you.
Really unfortunate, because the rest of the video is great.
Kipp, any chance you can check out the raw video footage you have and see if it works past that point?
Olivier, thanks for the funniest presentation I’ve seen in ages. Great stuff!