ROI can offer profits in income, in personel and skills, and in reputation
Whether we invest time, money, other capital, or any combination of them, we want to see some results come from the investment. For nonprofits in particular, time – often given by volunteers or interns – is especially valuable, as these organizations want to leverage the good-will effort into new donors, rising contributions, and good work in the community.
Writing a tweet might seem like hardly any investment at all, what with its 140-characters delimiting your typing time. Yet nonprofits are sending tweets regularly, and are likely keeping up blogs, and certainly should be sending email blasts. Now we’re talking some real time and money. How do you know you are getting a return on that investment (ROI)? Mark Paddock at SocialMediaToday.com outlines some measurements.
Top of his list: “Completed Transactions.” If support is not being given, then the outreach is not motivating the targeted audience. Others in the upper half of the scale include “Leads Generated” and “Customer Service Measurements and Reporting.” A reason we call the technology social networks is because we want to develop social relationships and community activity. If your organization is not seeing some movement upward on these things, you might need to reconsider your strategy.
And as MKCREATIVE as often pointed out, online reputation is critical. With the ever-growing sophistication of metric-tracking software in Twitter clients and Facebook accounts, keeping tabs on the ‘Likes’ and the favorable mentions (even the unfavorable ones) – as well as use of your organization’s keyword searches via Google – grows ever easier, and an accounting of your organization’s online rep should be a part of your audit.
Take a careful look at Mark’s list and ask your colleagues some tough questions about what you are putting into your social-media investments. And what you are getting back out. And if your organization has already taken on this rewarding process, please share with us what you learned!
