A big part of my job involves going to new client meetings and pitching ParkerWhite. I am selling our agency, explaining why we’re the best and often laying out 2 or 3 potential campaigns for the client that we think would be successful. I have been preparing this same pitch (or a variation of it) for about the past 8 years and inevitably the same questions always come up.

1. How much will it cost?
2. How will you measure the success?
3. What is my ROI?

The answers to these questions have always been fairly cut and dry. It will cost you x amount, we’ll incorporate <insert your favorite analytics tool> into your website and your ROI is going to be <ROI formula>. Simple.

Now that social media has entered the picture and become an integral part of most campaigns, I’m being asked the same questions but finding them more difficult to answer. I can still use my favorite analytics tool to gauge visitors to some degree and using my ROI formula I can derive a number, but does that number really capture the success of social media?

How do I place a dollar value on a new twitter follower, or on 6 new posts to my facebook fan page? More importantly, how does the marketing director (my client) take these numbers back to his boss and convince him/her that it was a success?

In my eternal quest to answer this question, not only for myself but for my clients, I stumbled across this amazing presentation from the Social Fresh Conference. Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) from Brand Builder Marketing does an excellent job of outlining the basics of Social Media ROI in his presentation:

Is there anything you would add?