Planning

Below you will find a collection of some of the wonderful resources available on calculating the return on investment (ROI) on your social media investment as well as general social media statistics.  I hope you find this useful.  Please let me know if there are move you would like to see added.

SOCIAL MEDIA ROI RESOURCES

• Dell’s $3million on Twitter and other Twitter ROI Examples: Great specific examples on Twitter ROI from Dell, Cisco, Pandora – focus on sales and customer support (Read Write Web June 2009)
• Using Cost Per Click For Social Media ROI: Interesting model to calculate some hard numbers for your project – take a hard look at this one! (The Page Wonders, June 2009)
• Social Media Statistics: Incredible compilation of stats and demographics of major sites by Helen Lawrence – tremendous resource (updates vary depending on resource)
• Case Study: BT: High level overview of challenges and successes of social media implementations throughout the BT organization (Sept 2009)
• Online Community ROI – Models and Reporting: Bill Johnston of ForumOne provides a great overview of a study (March 2008)
• Marketing Execs Must Realize and Use Social Media: A Cymphony study with great data and charts about the undertanding of the impact of social media by corporate executives ( Feb 2008)
• Case Study: Social Media Campaign for Sea World: Great overview with data on a social media campaign run by San Antonio’s Sea World (April 2008)
• The ROI of Social Media: Beth Kanter’s overview of how to effectively measure your social media ROI (Jan 2008)
• Measuring ROI on Social Media Camaigns: Quick summary of a study that I created in 2007 at Prospero.  Highlights how marketers are measuring ROI today ( Sept 2007)
• Measuring Social Media Marketing – Easier than you think!: Michael Brito blog post that outlines various metrics to measure your results (July 2007)
• User Community and ROI: Great tips on how to create a successful community (Mar 2007)
• Inc 500 and the Social Media Revolution: Review of Center for Marketing Research study of how the Inc. 500 are leveraging social media and measuring their success ( Jan 2007)
• Companies that Measure Social Media: Jeremiah Owyang’s lists of benchmarks for companies and companies that measure / analyze social media (Nov 2006)
• Calculating the ROI of Blogging: Charlene Li’s work on how to calculate your blogging ROI (October 2006)
• Social Media ROI – The Netflix Example: Matt McAlister’s post on revenue models and user motivations (Aug 2005)
• Measuring the Success of an Online Community: Joe Cothrel’s classic on how to create a successful community; “community ROI is not about ‘monetizing’ community members. . . . [I]t is about putting a process in place for recognizing the value that online community members create.”  (Feb 2000)

GENERAL SOCIAL MEDIA STATS

• Twitter Just a Blip So Far: Great data from Harris Interactive on Twitter adoption and usage by gender and age (5/2009)
• Women and Social Media Study: Incredibly detailed study on all social media activity of women across all ages – great data on attitudes and motivations.  (BlogHer / Compass April 2009)
• Pew Internet Project Data Memo: Great data on social networking usage by age category (1/2009)
• General Social Media Stats: Nice, clear compilation of stats across blogosphere, Twitter, google and more (Adam Singer, 1/2009)
• Lithium Open vs Closed Community: Great post with stats on participation rates of open vs. closed community (Lithium, 1/2009)
• Jeremiah Owyang’s Stat Collection: Jeremiah does a good job compiling data resources here – great for general use (1/2009)
• Razorfish FEED: Razorfish’s regular publication on consumer behavior in the online world.  Great information on current online consumer trends. (Oct 2008)
• Cone Consumer Social Network Study: 85% of social media users thought companies should interact with their consumers through social media, at least when needed and other info (Oct 2008)
• Technorati State of the Blogosphere: The 2008 study of blogs and bloggers. Amazingly detailed information. (Oct 2008)
• MENG Social Media Practices: Press release highlights some good information that shows that 67% of respondents consider themselves beginners at using social media for marketing purposes (Oct 2008)
• MarketTools 2008 InSight Report: Great information on social media usage with specifics on product research and impact on purchasing decisions. (Sept 2008)
• BizaarVoice Collection of Social Commerce Stats: Incredible collection gathered from various sources at various dates (first published Sept 2008)
• Universal McCann Wave Report: Great overview of Social media, its benefits and user demographics (Aug 2008)
• Pew Internet- Teens adn Social Media: Comprehensive and detailed report with charts and data on teen use of social media. (Dec 2007)
• Teens and Social Networking: A NSBA Study on teen activity in social networks – outlined on Robin Good’s blog (Nov 2007)
• American Newspapers & the Internet: Threat or Opportunity: a Bivings Report on newspaper adoption of Web 2.0 technologies and the opportunities presented (July 2007)
• Ad spend on Social Networks to Reach $2billion in 2010: I like to keep these articles to see how these predictions fair – this one from Marketing Vox (Nov 2006)
• MySpace Case Study: Interesting overview of critical decisions in MySpace’s early success (Sept 2006)
• Topix on Fire – the Ni-Chan Paradox: A great post from Topix about the impact of opening registration on participation (Mar 2006)

More coming as I upload from various bookmarks that I have stored.

/cb