Micro – The user who has posted content returns often and invites other.
Macro – Search engines like it and people see the site as fresh.

As far as what the actual value to the consumer and business – varies from Zero to $1B (estimated value of TripAdvisor). You decide.

I would have to disagree that businesses are uninvolved in Internet feedback – in my experience businesses have the challenge of dealing with too much information, in many different formats and with non standardised inputs, limited internal expertise and they are aware there is too little action they can take from it.

Personally, the businesses I encounter typically have the will and the interest, but they don’t necessarily have the time or expertise. The tools can often increase the data burden they feel they are under, rather than get them closer to what they actually need to do.

Sorry you find the article too dense, but I’m writing how to articles and exploring research issues in depth – no postcards here. Research & analytics, not rich media, is the specific remit.

Thanks,

Vicky

The hundreds of comments we get to our Travel Video PostCard series (on about 75,000-88,000 web sites, pages and blogs) would be, should be a destination specialist’s, pr person’s or marketing person’s dream for candid, wacky but often insightful observations about a destination or service.

Not so. They are still uninvolved in Internet feedback.

Thanks for your input as always. You are of course right that many business people may choose to participate in social media for fun and companionship – even I wouldn’t be so harsh as deprive them of joy based on mere ROI

I suppose what I was trying to explore here is the measures that help you decide do I do X or Y, invest here or here, buy an online marketing assistant or hire a PR agency.

I frequently hear comments such as “we’ve invested £XXX in social media & I’m not convinced it works as well as normal advertising”. In these instances I do try to reinforce the idea that you need clarity about why you’re there, how you are interacting with the community or content creators and what success will look like.

Because it would be easy to miss that you have created a great community of advocates and you have word of mouth driving sales via third parties, if what you are trying to measure is direct response click-throughs to your site.

As you say, the online space is so much more measurable than offline – I personally think the challenge is generally defining goals and measuring appropriately.

Cheers,

Vicky

A thought provoking post and an important one: social media marketing ROI is potentially easier than most to measure. After all, it’s the power of word of mouth marketing which can – for the most part – be tracked in detail, although the example you give shows complexity and illustrates opportunities for social media sites to offer more analytical services to content providers.

You’re ahead of the game in interpreting information – as with traditional online media there’s a lot of data collection going on with limited analysis beyond the headline figures.

As for reasons to take part in social media, sometimes entrepreneurs use it for companionship and fun! There’s a personal ROI there which may impact on the business, but a very subjective one!

Best wishes,
David
4TM Social Media