It seems that online and off line conversations are consumed with measuring the ROI from social media. Much of the dialog is a waste of time and focused on the wrong thing. Yet organizations seem to be demanding a measure of ROI from this thing we all call social media.
All businesses represent a system of inputs, processes and outputs.
Most businesses measure output, or results and said measures are purely
financial results. The irony is that results do not tell you what may
be wrong with the process or the inputs into a process. Results just
tell you what you’ve produced as a result of the inputs and processes
you’ve used. Social media does produce results but all those results
can tell you is whether your inputs and processes were operating
effectively. To change the result you must focus on both the inputs and
the processes. But who measures those? Not many if any.
A Problem With Thinking About ROI
If you use existing social media metrics most of them will tell you
about the reach of your message and its popularity with the market of
followers. Reach and popularity may not be the right measure of
effectiveness and efficiency. Getting reach is easy thanks to the power
of social technology. Popularity only equates to well being popular.
The question is are you popular with the right audience whom has an
interest in your conversations or an interest in a relationship.
Relationships beget opportunities for a transaction if the basis of a
conversation has an affinity to the markets needs and wants. Getting lots of followers, connections and massive reach could create results that are meaningless. Yet many organizations measure these results (outputs) and
use them to justify their presence, their efforts and the time and
money spent doing so. It is a lot like the days of measuring
advertising and marketing effectiveness which was justified by a 3% or
less response.
So How Do You Measure ROI?
If you understand systemic thinking you know that all results are
produced by the quality of your input and related processes. For social
media the input is reflected by your thinking. The process is
distribution of communications. Fundamentally it is that simply and
should be looked at simply. On the other hand the input is what you communicate to whom, where, when, how and why.
Now those elements of social media aren’t so simple and if they were
everyone would be applying the thinking behind each element and
creating massive ROI, which they are not.
The questions of what,where, when, how and why are deep and wide and require critical thinking. Critical thinking is purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do [1] in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions, or arguments.
Critical thinking might involve determining the meaning and
significance of what is observed or expressed. It seems that today most
organizations are chasing social media ROI without even considering
whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as
true. Subsequently everyone is consumed with measuring the results
without thinking through the inputs and processes that produce results
that can go beyond your expectations.
Unless you think critically about the ROI from social media
your thinking is not likely to produce any results. Thinking is the
input, communications is the process and well the results reflect the
quality of your thinking. The quality of your thinking is reflected by
what you know or don’t know.
The web requires a new knowledge domain that most businesses do not have. Knowledge about what? If
people are looking for solutions will they find you? When they find you
will your web site reflect conversations that enhance relationship?
Does your content engage and provide value? The market will decide that is less then ten seconds. Get it?
What say you?