How do I prove to senior management to invest more in social media marketing?

Social media marketing is becoming more mature, and quickly moving from being the latest fad, to being a real tool for connecting, engaging and selling to customers, listening and supporting customers, and collaborating. So, as the newness wears-off, and the investments continue to grow and reach critical mass, executives are asking for proof that the investments are bearing fruit -- delivering some tangible financial / competitive benefits.

At this transitional phase, it is important to provide tangible proof that social media is making a difference. Too often we are hearing cries for definitive financial ROI proof points, and being the ROI guy and very focused on financial measurement / proof, I agree that financial accountability is important.

However, we believe that focusing just on financial value and ROI is too narrow for social media at this stage of its lifecycle. Like several others, including Forrester, Altimeter and other analysts, we feel a multi-dimensional approach is needed because:

1) Financial benefits are important, but may take a too short term approach to the measurement of social media's value,

2) Looking at financial benefits overlooks important less direct / tangible benefits, such as Brand Equity and Risk Management, which are difficult to quantify, yet could be just as important to achieving marketing and sales goals,

3) Social media is in the "competitive advantage period" where optimizing ROI is not the most important factor and may even cause less to be invested than necessary. At this phase, not too different than the Internet in 1996, investing ahead of the curve, to be in the best position to "catch the wave" ahead of the competitors, is essential.

We recommend proving that your social media efforts are ahead of competitors, placing the company in the best position to ride the wave of social media success, and measuring the success using the Social ROI Dashboard. This methodology uses four key measures to measure the true short and long term / direct and indirect value of social media investments:
 Engagement - Quantifying the competitive advantages of social marketing campaigns in the scope and depth of engagement with prospects, customers, partners and advocates,

 Financial - Measuring social marketing's' impact in driving revenue and improving marketing efficiency.

 Risk Management - Assessing the competitive advantages of using social marketing to identify and mitigate risk, and quantifying the value of more timely mitigation of customer and product issues.

 Brand Equity - Quantifying the competitive advantages social marketing has driven in share of conversation, brand awareness, brand sentiment, purchase intent and other key brand performance measures.

Using each of these four dimensions, measuring value both short and long term, and with direct and indirect measures, the competitive performance can be summed into a single comparative score to easily communicate competitive advantage, called the Social Benjamin Index.

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