The ROI of Non-profit Social Media | David Alston

This presentation does a great job of pointing to the return on investment from social media campaigns that executives of business and nonprofit organizations can understand:

Top Ten Conversations to Listen for:

#10: The complaint
#9: The complement
#8: The problem
#7: The question or inquiry
#6: The campaign impact
#5: The crisis
#4: The competitor
#3: The crowd
#2: The influencer
#1: The point of need (the customer)

Companies and nonprofit organizations which lack a listening program are doing themselves a disservice by ignoring or some might say leaving on the table–the ability to understand, connect, and build relationships with core constituencies and influencers.

Aaron at Mashable has a great breakdown of key questions to ask to regarding social media ROI:

– Are we currently part of conversations about our product/industry?

– How are we currently talked about versus our competitors?

Then to measure success, we ask whether we were able to:

– Build better relationships with our key audiences?

– Participate in conversations where we hadn’t previously had a voice?

– Move from a running monologue to a meaningful dialogue with customers?

You might also check this post out by Beth Kanter on the examining the ROI of Social Media video at NTEN, Justin Perkins on Nonprofit ROI with an interesting calculation spreadsheet, or perhaps this post on return on investment by Jason Falls.

thanks to social media consultant and maven Valeria for sharing the David Alston of the social metrics firm Radian 6 presentation.

Do you have any suggestions for assessing the roi of social media for nonprofits, advocacy groups, associations, or small businesses?