ROI in social media: A look at the arguments

Abstract

Return on Investment (ROI) has become the Holy Grail of social media. Marketers are being squeezed between admonishments to participate in the vast new online communications available to them and demands to justify the cost using conventional advertising metrics. New ROI calculators are being created almost as fast as new social networking sites- then just as quickly being dismissed as being unworkable. In this article, Tia Fisher of eModeration takes a long view of the current state of ROI in social media, and examines the arguments for and against attempting to use any kind of metric to justify involvement in a social media program. © 2009 Palgrave Macmillan.