Now It’s Time to Show Social Marketing & PR ROI

Last week, Dr. Natalie and I opened our kimonos and showed Focus roundtable listeners how to determine a social customer service ROI. We moved beyond just talking about metrics to discuss how calculate the ROI by merging information from:

  1. Traditional operational activities and metrics.
  2. Social analytics.
  3. Business results when social media is applied.

We connected the dots to show the interrelatedness and dependencies across the different types of insights and how that translated into monetary savings for a client. And we compared those gains to the costs of the social program.

This week, Dr. Natalie and I going to do the same with showing how to calculate a social marketing and PR ROI on Focus. Join us tomorrow, on November 9 at 11 am PT / 2 pm ET!

**** If you missed the live event, catch the replay!

 

How to Calculate Social Customer Service ROI

Customer Service executives and managers have the responsibility for caring for customers and delivering experiences that ultimately result in customers deciding whether to stay loyal to a company.

That decision affects the bottom-line by either increasing or decreasing costs and revenue.

Social Media represents a new dynamic in customer experiences where the company, its products, services, reputation and the way it treats customers is front and center of millions of people.

Comments, reviews, ratings and the dissatisfaction is permanently “inked-in” in the online world for millions of others to view -- forever. And while Marketing and PR may spend hundreds, or sometimes millions of dollars creating a brand image, a short message, like a Tweet or Facebook post, can activate the destruction of a brand’s reputation. In effect, Customer Service is the new PR and Marketing for a brand.

Don’t fall into the trap of “Social media ROI cannot be calculated because there are too many unknowns.” To the nay-sayers, I say baloney!

Check out this video on How to Calculate Social Customer Service ROI, originally part of a Focus.com roundtable hosted with Dr. Natalie Petouhoff. For the new and improved video format, I added a bunch of new slides.

Dr. Natalie and I are also within weeks of releasing our Kindle and Nook versions of a Social Customer Service ROI ebook as part of our Simplifying Social Business  ebook series. We’re a little behind due to work commitments.

Wrong-headed Hoopla About Social ROI

Too many social media pundits hold the view that a social Return on Investment (ROI) can’t be determined. You’ll hear all kinds of reasons like too many unknowns. And there’s my personal favorite, “Don’t worry about the ROI, just get a strategy and start doing something.”

Well, I agree with part of the above statement. You do a need a social strategy to before you can even begin to determine the social ROI (smROI). But the rest? They’re mythtaken.

Social ROI can be determined. So why do the myths around ROI persist? Here are a few reasons:

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Objectives & Strategy–Social Business Starting Points

There’s so much talk about social ROI but the focus seems to be on the endpoint (ROI). As important as determining the ROI can be, it’s the caboose on the business case train.

The starting point is objectives, followed by strategy design, KPI definition, and then lastly, the determination of the ROI. Let's talk turkey.

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Focus Roundtable – Becoming a social business

If you missed The Business of Social Business live talk on Focus, catch it on replay. This was the first of several sessions where Dr. Natalie and I discussed the 7 steps to become a social business.

This week, we covered the first 3 steps: 

  1. Understand the impact on traditional functional roles.
  2. Understand the impact on the business at large - people, process, & technology.
  3. Listen & discover with social monitoring.

Next week, Dr. Natalie and I will continue the discussion, focusing on social objectives and strategy.

Both of these sessions are based on content from our The Business of Social Business ebook.

RIM (Blackberry) = Social Business #Fail

OMG. Have you been following the RIM (Blackberry) outage snafu in the UK? This is an operational crisis accentunated by a communication crisis. And it's an anti-case study in how to be a failed social business that lacks customer centricity.

Update - Oct 12 - The crisis moved into the 3rd consecutive day so I updated my video analysis. Here it is...

Dr. Natalie and I are talking about The Business of Social Business in tomorrow's Focus Roundtable. We'll be providing important insight this week and next in how to avoid being a RIM. Because trust me, you don't want to lose customers the way they're going to.

 

Reference articles

BlackBerry Service Crashes in Europe

BlackBerry Outage Persists in U.S.; Customers Rely on Work-Arounds

Outages Plague RIM's BlackBerry for Second Day in Europe, India

Social Media Woes Highlight Marketing Faults

 

This article isn't specifically about the RIM outage, but you may find it an interesting perspective about RIM's future...

A third of BlackBerry's enterprise base to head for exits in 2012

 

Social Business Impacts People, Process, & Technology

If you want to build a successful social business, then you need to understand how it will impact your company. For example, you need to understand there’s a difference between activities like launching miscellaneous marketing campaigns using social media channels and implementing corporate-wide initiatives.

The latter situation is a change management issue – and that means it will impact people, processes, and technology

Read More

4 Ways Rackspace Email Inspires High Customer Satisfaction

Rackspace Email is the example of a customer-centric companies all others should aspire to. Here's why...

Catch the replay of yesterday's Focus roundtable on Customer Centricity in a Social CRM World, co-hosted with Dr. Natalie and including our guest Emily Yellin.