Two weeks ago I listened to webinar hosted by Mike Lewis of Awareness on Social Media ROI. The speaker? Katie Paine of KD Paine and Partners. For those of you new to Social Media measurement- look no further. Katie knows social media, and the answer to the most important question asked from the CMO “What’s my ROI”?! and “How do I Measure Social Media?”

Here is a quick taste of some of the nuggets of information she shared with the audience.

First, her definition of ROI isn’t what you think it is. It’s not “Return on Investment” but it is the following:
“ROI is an economic term, not necessarily and actionable measure of success”

“There is no audience you target, there are multiple constituencies”

For the metric-driven marketer, consider asking yourself a subjective question when embarking on a social media campaign. For example, “If you are celebrating complete, 100% success a year from now, what is different?”

Should you blog or tweet? “Don’t ask yourself, ask your customers!”

And finally, one of my favorites. The definition of time, success and reach has changed. “The answer isn’t how many you have reached, but how those people you have reached have responded.“

And those are just the soundbites- I strongly recommend you take a few minutes (ok, 50 minutes) to listen to the webinar.