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ROI vs. ROi
Thanks to everyone who made it out to last night’s Boston Social Media Club event, and to Brian Cavoli and Cymfony for sponsoring it!
Rather than try to recap the entire event myself, I’ll leave it to others (although John Cass couldn’t bring his laptop and Greg PC was a panelist and perhaps a bit too preoccupied to take notes). Which reminds me, we’re still looking for an official Digital Scribe for our events!
I will share some of my favorite quotes and insights from last night (a couple of which predate the event)…
- Greg PC: “It’s not about ROI, it’s about ROi, with a small I.”
- Top 5 most frequently heard objections to social media
- Katie Paine: “It’s not about how many eyeballs, it’s about the right eyeballs.”
- Old Quote: Shel Israel: “There’s really no need to measure the ROI of blogs. After all, is it necessary to measure the ROI of your pants?”
- Counter quote: Charlene Li, Forrester: “Successful blog management requires measurement.”
- So who’s right?
- Susan Getgood: “How do you get buy-in for social media? Combine it with traditional marketing activities.”
- “How do you join the conversation? First, stop selling yourself.
- Katie Paine: “As a [PR] profession, we’ve spent our lives screaming at people. Stop screaming and start listening.”
Technorati Tags: SMCBoston, SocialMediaClub, Boston, socialmedia, social media, Web 2.0, ROI, measurement, business
The 4 panelists made some great points last night. And the collective 5th panelist asked some very relevant questions.
I wanted to expand on a couple of the points Todd posted that I gave me some perspective on social media.
1. The point about ROI with a “little i” is probably the most compelling reason to get involved in social media early. Approaching social media in small ways can have a big impact. That cuts both ways, but with a smart plan and only a little investment, marketers can prove the Return on social media that will help them move onto bigger projects.
2. Finding the right eyeballs. There were some questions about a couple different aspects of this. Are media research companies set-up to understand the niches that social media create? Are large companies able to segment their budgets as narrowly as social media segments? And should they? If you focus on one social media medium (say that 10 times fast) does that mean you are missing opportunities from another community?
These questions are a little bigger than can fully be answered in 2 hours. But the advice given was that companies should seek out and engage deeply with a few communities that fit their business. Trying to enter too many communities, especially leading with your sales pitch, will likely get you shut out of all of them.
And, expanding on the Scream/Listen analogy, one of the traits of Social Media and Web 2.0 in general is that content is pulled by the user rather than pushed by the marketer.
The channels that social media employs, blogs, RSS, forums, networking sites, are consumed when the consumer chooses. This gives marketers a great chance for listening by monitoring where people are going to get their content and what they are doing with it.
Overall, this was a very useful session and I definitely picked up some tips.
[...] Reporter Media Relations 2007 and the PRSA T3 PR conference, and Todd Van Hoosear recaps the latest Social Media Club Boston event on Social Media [...]
Katie, sorry for mucking up your name everywhere–I hope it didn’t knock me too far down on your measurement scales!