A SHEL OF MY FORMER SELF — Augie Ray speaks with FIR co-host Shel Holtz about "The ROI of Social Media Marketing," a new research report that goes beyond the financial measures to address a variety of ways to assess the impact of companies’ social media efforts. According to Forrester, "Social media marketing delivers a wide range of benefits to organizations that are beneficial in the short term and long term in ways both quantitative and qualitative. To properly value the impact of their social media marketing investments, interactive marketers must align their objectives, metrics, targets, and strategies across four perspectives -- the financial perspective, the digital perspective, the brand perspective, and the risk management perspective"...

VISINSIGHTS — I’ve been reading and participating in Forrester "Wave" reports for years and it’s always interesting to see how people react to the vendor technology evaluations in these reports. Sure, it’s always great to be selected as one of the companies to participate and we are certainly thrilled to continue to be ranked as one of the top providers in the industry, but for me the real value of the Wave Report goes far beyond which companies were named "Leaders" and "Strong Performers." The inside information and trend data collected and synthesized by the lead analyst, in this case the extremely knowledgeable Zach Hofer-Shall, is usually as valuable, if not more, than designated vendor bragging rights for the next 12 months...

E-CONSULTANCY.COM — Earlier this month, social media darlings around the internet were singing the praises of Old Spice, with Mashable claiming that the now infamous campaign was the "future of marketing" and that the agency involved, Wieden + Kennedy, had set a "standard marketing experts will admire and follow in the years to come." Now, various marketing blogs and online news sources are reporting that sales have "fallen by 7%." But, with barely a week gone since Mr Old Spice conversed with "everyone" on YouTube, is it simply too early to predict ROI from the campaign? Looking at the numbers, it seems the original analysis of the drop in sales may be flawed...

E-CONSULTANCY.COM — Imagine an advertising and marketing platform that reaches billions around the world, and doesn’t cost you a penny. Free to get involved, free to share and promote content, with a massive locked-in audience who will actively promote your content for you. Unfortunately it doesn’t exist. Social media is many things but despite several statements to the contrary, free is not one of them. Many companies planning a social media campaign are attracted by the seemingly low set up costs and ongoing overheads involved, but scrape away that optimistic surface and you’ll find there’s a need for real investment if you want your campaign to function properly...

SOCIAL MEDIA EXPLORER — Forrester Research has produced another interesting report, this one focusing on perhaps the hottest topic of the social media world over the past year: The ROI of Social Media Marketing. The piece, primarily authored by Forrester analyst and friend Augie Ray, offers what Forrester calls a balanced scorecard for measuring the ROI of social media, complete with expected Forrester graphics and interview-based insights. Ray uses the 1996 book The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy Into Action by Drs. Robert Kaplan and David Norton to offer the argument that the best way to measure the impact of social media is through a wide range of metrics that are both directly and indirectly financial...