I think the ROI comes from making a content friend. You create a path for people to follow that brings them value at each step of the way along that path–which I guess we shouldn’t call a path because the B2B buying process is very rarely linear. But keep them interested and impressed and thankful and then when consideration time comes, you’re considered perhaps a little more than others that offer what you offer. Social media plays a role in that, as does good content, branding, and all the other things that marketing does. But I think it’s going to be hard to trace a hard ROI to that effort. We can see whether these efforts increase the number of qualified leads, but that may be all we can really measure directly. Thanks for the comments.

Chris

Reading through this, though, made me wonder where ROI is actually easy to measure. I understand how you can measure it in cases where you are investing in a company, for example, which pays dividends, or in any instance where you are buying something, holding it, then selling it.

But any time that you are spending money on things that cannot immediately be turned into cash, then you have to create ROI hoops that help you make an argument in favor of the expense, right? Spending money on social media is certainly similar to spending it on PR, but it’s also similar to spending it on a new phone system or computer equipment, training, or consulting, methinks.