Validation in Forrester’s Social Media Report…Well...Kind Of

I have given hundreds of new business presentations in the 15 years since founding Strategic Communications Group (Strategic). Some have gone great…a few have bombed, yet, all in all, I’d say in most instances my delivery was on target.

When I was purveyor of public relations services I had a couple of canned phrases I’d call on to illustrate the value of the awareness and credibility conferred by coverage from the media and analyst communities.

“People do business with companies they know and trust,” I’d say. “Public relations builds that know and trust.”

A fair statement and one that also applies to other brand oriented communications programs, such as advertising and event sponsorships. Yet, the return on investment from these types of expenditures is fuzzy at best.

Yes…there is value. But the financial return on that value is difficult to quantify.

It’s for this reason that Strategic has made such a dramatic pivot to re-position itself as a social media marketing consultancy implementing sales-oriented programs for technology and healthcare organizations.

By aligning our work with success benchmarks related to revenue drivers – lead generation, cultivation of prospect relationships and deal capture – we have proven it is possible for a company to derive a measurable return from its external communications efforts.

Admittedly, Strategic’s brand of sales-oriented social media is very much at the early adopter phase. I have never once received a request for proposal for a package of services consistent with what we do well. For us, sales and marketing remains an education of what’s possible with social.

So, you can imagine how jazzed I was when Forrester Research began touting its new research report that explores the ROI of social media marketing. Finally, this would be much needed validation to my contention to marketers that social can be so much more than setting up a corporate blog or Twitter feed, or merely listening to the online conversation.

Were my hopes in Forrester’s report smashed on the rocks?

Well…no. Senior analyst Augie Ray does discuss how marketers can “draw a straight line between investments in social media marketing and financial results.”

However, he affords as much of the discussion to the intangible benefits delivered via social networks – retweets, Facebook fans, site visits, positive ratings, etc.

“They can’t be counted on an income statement, but that doesn’t mean they are valueless,” Ray writes. “Instead, these are leading indicators that the brand is doing something to create value that can lead to financial results in the future.”

Ugghh! Forrester’s Ray makes an unfortunate return to the “let’s hope we one day benefit from this” value proposition of most traditional channels of communication.

Marketers should demand a sales-related ROI from their social media budget. Awareness, positioning, credibility and thought leadership should be viewed as merely the unintended outcome of participating in online communities.