Forrester analyst Charlene Li writes today that "it's not about the math" and says she wishes she hadn't tossed out $1 million in new business as a quantifiable metric for the effectiveness of her blog. For the record, I am the guilty party who picked up on her $1M ROI comment at the New Communications Forum in March '06.
I consider Charlene a friend as well as business colleague and I certainly didn't mean to make things difficult for her. Now that I think about it, I can imagine her fellow analysts giving her a hard time about her ROI calculation. ("Hey Charlene, you sure it was only $1M?!)
Nonetheless I'm intrigued by her blog post today. She seems to be saying three things:
1. Her blog has incalculable value.
She writes:
"I also consider my blog integral to all of my activities as an analyst. I discuss blog posts frequently with clients and the press and use it to solicit feedback and conduct research."
2. But ROB (Return on Blog, as I call it in The Corporate Blogging Book) is generally not a quantifiable metric.
She writes:
"Companies could spend endless cycles debating and calculating the correct way to calculate the value of a blog and end up losing sight of the core value of creating a dialog with their customers."
3. And yet... couching that value in economic terms (which I take to mean not hard dollars, per se, but business value in a broader sense) is important.
She concludes:
Quantifying that benefit doesn’t need to be a long, drawn out exercise but I do believe that clearly stating the goals of the blog in economic terms is a good starting point for a corporate blogging strategy. Use those goals then as the simple metrics to determine the success of your company’s blogging activities.
Hmmm... but exactly how do you do that? Does this put us back to square one on the ROI of blogging? What do you think?? Leave your comment below. Or click on over to Charlene's post and leave a comment there. I'd love to hear some chatter on this topic. I don't think it's going to go away.
I don't think it is essential to precisely measure the ROI of blogging efforts. It is just another piece of an important marketing and relationship building puzzle. My guess is that your publisher doesn't measure the ROI on the art on the cover of your book. However, it is important that the cover is done well, and is attractive. Similarly, blogs play an important role.
Posted by: Kevin Hillstrom | June 06, 2006 at 01:05 AM
I use blogs as a way of keeping up with people in my network. How much ROI is in that? Not sure, but when someone asks for a referral, my colleagues who keep blogs are now on my short list.
Dianna Huff
Posted by: Dianna Huff | June 06, 2006 at 07:44 AM
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