Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Que Biz-Tech)

I have never met Olivier, but I have had an online relationship with him for over 3 years and I can tell you he knows what he is talking about. He is firm in his stand, and he always takes the time to explain why he takes the stand he does, he is a man on a mission.Now, for some reason the world has missed a simple observation, Social Media (conversations)is not new, its just gone digital. What has been overlooked, is how to accurately translate these conversations into revenue, how these conversations become conversions, how they actually bring about a result worth measuring. No Olivier is not the only one to see that conversations can have a Return On Investment (ROI), he is however, the only one to date that can articulate it with clarity and passion. And now with this book, he is working with you side-by-side.What caught my eye upon cracking the cover, is how Olivier walks you from beginning to end, from what a Social Media Program IS, what you need to think about, to what it should look like,and what you should get from such a program. It's the first Social Media University TextBook in my humble opinion.Right from the beginning you'll read how to create a social company, all the way to Analysis and reporting of your social media program.This book is easy to read and yet it is serious heavy lifting at times, but if you take the time and follow Olivier's thinking, the confusion simply goes away. If you do the work, you will have a solid foundation of how to not only leverage Social Media networks, you'll know how to participate in them, how to plug Social Media into your business, how to listen, how to monitor. and as he says, " Listening Before Talking". You learn more from this book than sitting at your computer trying to figure it out. Olivier is your Social Media ROI Mentor, all for the price of a book.One of my favorite chapters is, The Eleven Key Best Practices for Social Media Program Management.I highly recommend reading this book many times not just once,it is packed with so much, one reading would merely set you up to fail. You have in your hands a text book if you study it, you will increase your odds of success in all social networks. A MUST have on your book shelf. This book will protect you from those who consider themselves Social Media GURU's, the so called Social Media Expert.This book will play a huge role in my work, how I see the future of business, how this fits an open and free business model, and how an ROI can be achieved. I look forward to implementing many of the steps in this book, and you will too, it's the best investment you'll make for the future of your business.Make Social Media work for you, buy this book and you will be working along side Olivier, you'll be working with the best. be sure to follow him on Twitter: [...]Owen Greaves[...]

Everybody's got a "go-to" shelf of books they constantly dig through and re-read. I don't put a lot of books on my shelf, but Olivier Blanchard's Social Media ROI is going to be the latest addition to my "go-to" shelf. Blanchard's work will join two other measurement favorites of mine on the shelf: James Sterne's Social Media Metrics (an earlier, but thorough work) and Katie D. Paine's recent Measure What Matters.There are really two general groups of social media practitioners today. The first group knows the tools, loves the tools, knows how to teach people how to use the tools, and thinks the tools ARE social media. Just for the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with that-- I think it's just an incomplete thought. The second group approaches social media as a strategy. They know the tools as well, but they know that tools only help build the house, they are not the house. Tools may disappear (as some already have), may evolve, may mutate, but the strategy will be constant. Blanchard's book is for the second group, or for people who want to understand the complete social media management mindset. Its not a resource for filling your tool belt.What do I love about this book? Let's start with comprehensive. A nutshell summary: create a social company that aligns social media to business goals and performance measurement, and is sustainable. Like others before him, Blanchard admits that creating a successful integration of social media into a company involves changing some operational groundwork (chapter 8), and may need to be accompanied by a paradigm shift.The book also contains sections for nonprofits, internal support, public relations, human resources, and crisis management, to name a few. There is a lengthy section on the nuts and bolts of measurement (including formulas) and advice on how to create buy-in for comprehensive social media programs. Importantly, he addresses the "big five" myths of social media including "social media is a waste of time." Where have I heard that before?Another section of the book is about integrating social media into your organization, and includes some advice on models, who should handle it and a description of what a social media director might look like. Policies, guidelines and training are also covered. But I'm just giving you a 3000-foot view. There's just too much good stuff in this book to discuss in a review. Just get it and read it and do it.Social Media ROI reminds me that social media is not an add-on; it needs to be a fully integrated strategy in every aspect of business.It's a powerful media that can create a consistent upward climb in long-term customer engagement that traditional media cannot do alone.Blanchard, a native of France, is principal at BrandBuilder Marketing, and maintains a few highly rated blogs.

I am kind of a book snob. When it comes it reading "business" books I expect a lot of dramatic stories which are loosely related to the topic and a few insightful nuggets of information. Let's be honest, most books for the business audience could barely fill out a good blog post."Social Media ROI" scores high on providing good actionable content and information for anyone who is trying to build a social media program. It is a one stop shop. You get information on how to evaluate your organization's current social media abilities. You learn how to sell this program to others in your company. You'll even learn about the metrics you should follow and how to create a good reporting system.The reason I am withholding a star is that I wanted to hear a deeper discussion around the concrete ROI that Social Media can provide for business. I mean any business. If you are in retail, manufacturing, CPG, or sister verticals the discussion around ROI will be helpful. If you are not in these verticals it will be less applicable. And if you are in B2B like I am it probably wont scratch your itch.That being said, I enjoyed reading this book. There are obviously years of experience behind the information that is shared. And let's be honest you can't cover everything in one book. I would love to see follow up materials perhaps in blog format that attempt to tackle the question around Social Media ROI in a B2B context.

Starts out strong but contains a huge amount of padding. Mostly contains rules and instructions most people will never encounter. Not worth the time.

Using social media may seem easy and straight forward enough. The real challenge is how to leverage social media communication for business, how to manage risks associated with it and how to prove its benefits to senior management. "Social Media ROI" is a brilliantly written step-by-step guide on integrating social media in your corporate communication for best return on the investment. Blanchard also addresses the important aspects of setting up rules for the use of social media by staff, and of measuring, analyising and reporting on social media ROI.

There are so many books written around the social media world. The problem is that many are vague, empty echo chambers where the author's often don't get down to the nitty gritty. This book goes there and further.From beginning your social media program to its execution all areas are explained and discussed; never forgetting the principles of the ROI. It's this that stands it apart from other books. Of course the others play a huge role in examining the digital marketing world from a wider perspective but it's always been a problem for businesses and social media marketeers to demonstrate the return on investment that will come from a well constructed presence (or even through observation) on the channels.Blanchard keeps us on the right track and ultimately gives us a multitude of approaches & answers to the question - what is the ROI of social media?I frequently recommend this book to anyone who needs to be convinced.

This is a very well thought out book on social media and on how to apply proper control so that returns are measured. If more companies took notice of this book there would be a lot less hype...The only minor criticism is that the book is a little repetitive at times (repetitio juvant perhaps?). Also, it could deter small firms from approaching social media if it were taken too literally as some of the metrics are often beyond the scope of SMEs.

I've ordered this book to help me write my Bachelor's thesis on the same topic. Although it has helped me to fill quite a few pages and had various very good points I was lacking a few explaining case studies and practical references. Only one out of the 4 Chapters tries to specifically tackle the big ROI question. The answer approaches are very general and need more cross references to real-life examples.Overall though it gives a good overview on the topic and is pleasantly written. It gives good tips on measuring Social Media performance. It's a good book to develop a thorough general opinion about Social Media ROI but is lacking deeper insights needed to formulate e.g. a thesis about the topic.