Matt Baril

Here's an interesting video from the well known Erik Qualman from Socialnomics.net (there is also a book). Eric created a video to promote his book that totally went viral last summer and made him quite famous. You can see all his videos here at: http://socialnomics.net/video/. The videos mainly consist of surprising statistics, data and case studies related to Social Media and its positive impact on business.

Even though I'm a big fan of Eric's videos myself, I'm not too sure whether the cause-effects are always right. For instance, having a Twitter campaign and selling more products doesn't mean Twitter is necessarily the cause, just like engaging in Social Media channels and having an increase in sales for 2 consecutive years might not be directly correlated. Many other factors such as the product itself, economy, competition are all common factors that could positively impact sales with or without Social Media. Another way of looking at it is if a company is using Social Media channels to reach its customers, chances are that they have a corporate culture in which risk taking, pioneering and being connected with customers is important. This broader strategy boosted by corporate values could also explain an increase in sales and Social Media would account for only a small part of it.

It's difficult to pinpoint what the effects of Social Media are on your sales and it's risky to come up with strong conclusions as the ones in the video. If you're interested about cause-effect I would suggest a good book I'm currently reading and that you've probably heard of: Freakonomics.

You can find more details about the data used in the video at this address:

http://socialnomics.net/2009/11/12/social-media-roi-examples-video/

Here are 5 articles on ROI that have generated a lot of discussion in 2009:

1. HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI – Mashable
2. The Business of Social Media: B2B and B2C Engagement by the Numbers – Brian Solis
3. Defining Social Media ROI once and for all – The Brand Builder
4. Social Media ROI – a financially sound method – SocialMediaToday
5. Enough with Misusing Social Media Roi, Already – Dave Fleet

Did the statistics surprise you? How do you measure your ROI? What are the best articles about ROI you've come across?