Just about every discussion about social media includes the famous, or infamous, question: “What’s the ROI on social media?”

You may be getting closer to having an answer for your clients or your boss. A study from Wetpaint and Altimer Group confirms that communicating with customers through social media correlates with better financial performance.

However, as we always say and as this study confirms, just communicating with customers through social media won’t cut it.

It’s about engagement. You need to have a genuine conversation with your customers; social media is most definitely not a one-way street.

The study found the companies with the highest level of engagement – companies with employees dedicated to monitoring and being active in social media communities – saw the biggest gains.

How much financial gain are we talking about?

Companies with broad, deep social media engagement saw an 18% increase in revenues, while the least engaged companies saw a 6% decrease in revenues.

Read more about the study and the effectively engaged companies’ strategies here:
New Study Indicates Social Media Pays; Correlation Between Brands SM Efforts and Financial Performance

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 9:12 am and is filed under Homepage, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.