During today’s presentation to the Seattle Social Media Club, Sean O’Driscoll, community builder and influencer marketing expert, revealed how he answers the inevitable questions about the ROI on social media and influencer marketing programs.
He held up a phone and rhetorically asked, “How do you measure the ROI on your telephones?” Translation: it’s the conversations that count — assuming you listen and have scalable strategies for responding. He then went on to share his planning and engagement frameworks for strategizing and then operationalizing social media initiatives.
Based on his many years running influencer and MVP programs at Microsoft, Sean suggests that questions about proving the ROI on social media marketing often signal resistance to change. Rather than get into a debate on social ROI, he advocates defining business objectives with metrics linked to desired sustainable results, rather than tactical KPIs like the volume of tweets or fan reach.
The whole point of engaging in influencer marketing and conversations with your market is to learn where, how and why to transform key business functions, processes, products, etc., in order to better meet your customers’ needs. And to understand how to articulate and deliver on brand promises that will attract and keep your customers, and motivate them to enlist other customers — a virtuous cycle of brand advocacy.
Note: Sean O’Driscoll is CEO and co-founder of Ant’s Eye View, a newly formed Seattle area strategy and social consultancy.
