This is the part of my toonblog from Scott Stratten’s BlogWorld keynote that keeps getting mentioned by people, so I thought I’d offer it on its own after seeing Scott’s tweet yesterday.
Updated: A few thoughts about poor, maligned and misused ROI. Or, Seven Things (Off the Top Of My Head) That I Believe:
- I believe in measuring, benchmarking, testing, comparing and assessing. I believe in doing your best to surface the tangible financial results from an organization’s investments in any field, including social media. But…
- I believe it’s easy to confuse that which can be measured with that which matters… and that, when you’re dealing with human relationships, there’s a lot that both matters tremendously and resists simple measurement. (See also “Schools, Standardized testing”.) But…
- I believe that Belief #2 isn’t a reason not to try. Social media isn’t free, and any responsible communicator wants to use their organization’s resources to maximum effect. But…
- It is a reason to keep your attempts to measure outcomes in some perspective. And…
- It’s a reason not to get so hung up on quantitative data that you miss out on the qualitative benefits of having decent, respectful relationships with people – online and offline. Or that you wind up sounding less like a human being than a not-terribly-clever marketing algorithm.
- I believe there are very smart people who’ve thought about this more than I have.
- I believe it’s time for tea.
