This post was written by Michelle Golden: "Asking 'What's the ROI of social media?' is akin to asking 'What's the ROI of a telephone?' or 'What's the ROI of a computer?' or 'What's the ROI of e-mail?'
First, these are all tools. They all have the potential to be significant time-suckers. And they each can make us enormously effective. Depending on our purpose and actions with the tools.
Second, to truly gauge ROI--on a broad basis--you would have to consider ALL the cost to acquire, set up and maintain each of these over time. You would also have to consider ALL the value attained through the use of the tool over time.
To do this properly and completely would be an enormous job, would require some use of metrics, and some use of judgment or anecdotal evidence...
A more realistic and useful approach is to project desired ROI use-by-use or, in marketing terms, initiative-by-initiative..."
Learn more about ROI for tools by clicking on the author's name above.
Source: Golden Practices, 7 February 2010, reproduced with permission of the author.
