A common theme today revolved around getting management to buy-in to social media initiatives.

Promoting what, Dawn Lacallade, Solarwinds, calls community health – participation, feedback – might be a nice measure of success for a community manager, but they aren’t going to convince a CEO to invest.

To gain a CEO’s commitment you need to demonstrate business value. You need to think in terms of ROI.

• Improved net promoter score driven by a closer with your customers
• Reduced customer service costs due to the community answering the consumer questions
• Increased sales by better knowing what the consumer wants

The good news is case studies are emerging regarding the positive impact of social media.

• Solarwinds’ R&D budget allocation runs approximately 50% lower than industry average driven by their community involvement in product development
• One of the 35 ideas by Turbo Tax’s Inner Circle members has generated $19MM in revenue over three years
• Scholastic tapped into its community to redesign its flyer resulting in a 3% increase in sales versus its former design

How are you defining the return on your social media investment?