the continuing saga of the ROI of social media

(TOTH to David Brazeal.)

David Meerman Scott provides some very useful advice to those of us who often find ourselves asked the Ultimate Question:

What's the ROI of social marketing?

It's worth watching. Check it out.

As he points out at the beginning, there are cynical ways to answer this question, and there are less cynical ways to answer it.

There's an argument to be made (non-cynical) that many things CAN be measured (and they should):

• How many people are exposed to your ideas
• How many have downloaded your content/videos/ebook/podcast
• How many times have they shared it?
• How many people are talking about our ideas, our company?
• Versus our competition? How much of it is positive? What's a useful benchmark?

And then there's the somewhat more cynical:

What’s the ROI of putting on your pants this morning?

There's no doubt that there is one. I think you'd see an eventual loss of revenue if you stopped wearing pants to work. (Results may vary.)

Still: you can't measure everything in dollars and cents.

Some things you can. Not everything.

Here's the direct link to the video.