Social in this instance is really about engaging with prospects, nurturing that relationship, and building up their confidence levels to actually open up their wallet. Even if the nurturing process does not immediately (say, within six months) lead to a sale, the door remains open for future deals, if the company is persistent in its engagement with the prospect. In this respect, ROI is not about hard profits initially. It’s about establishing a relationship and building a level of trust with the prospect that paves the way for future business.

1. Social Media ROI
for Distributed Teams

2. Synopsis
Much has been written about the return on investment (ROI) of social media.
Table of Contents
How do you quantify it? Is it measurable? There are those who believe it’s too
Synopsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 difficult to quantify, and then there’s the camp that says, “yes, it’s absolutely
Differing Philosophies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 quantifiable and social media is treated no differently than other forms of
The Purists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 communication.”
The Revisionists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
This paper examines the potential for ROI measurements of social media
Key Factors in ROI Calculation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
usage by distributed teams. Why focus on distributed teams? Today’s
Branding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
consumer communicates and engages with a corporate brand. As social
Risk Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
evolves and the personal brand becomes more important, we’ll find that
Collaboration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
measuring engagement with that personal brand inherently is more difficult
Recruiting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
but potentially brings with it much more value. There is plenty of literature
Reduction in Customer Churn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
analyzing social media ROI in general terms but fewer examining the issue
Customer Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
from a distributed-team standpoint. Nevertheless, there is overlap between
Lead Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
the two and this paper will focus on the points more unique to distributed
How to calculate ROI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
teams. Whether those teams are extended field marketing teams, sales
Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
teams, or teams of financial advisors or insurance agents, we’ll look at the
Large Financial Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
scope for ROI as a whole.
Regional Financial Institution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Splenda4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
We’ll take a look at some real-life examples of organizations that have
Enhancing ROI . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
used social in distributed teams and see how their ROIs were calculated.
About Actiance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Increasingly, we’ve begun to see more companies publish their ROI figures,
Socialite Engage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 from which lessons can be learned and applied to future social
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 marketing campaigns.
2 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams 3 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 3

3. Differing Philosophies
Inevitably, hard figures “accented” with soft intangibles coalesce to arrive Two groups exist when it comes to the measurement of ROI with social
at an “ROI” that executives look for in justifying their budget decisions. At media: the Purists and the Revisionists. Here, we’ll take a look at what
the end of the day, this paper argues that both camps mentioned above have separates them.
their merits and that a combination of the two makes for the most compelling
argument in a defensible social media ROI calculation. We’ll also look at The Purists
ways to improve ROI in a distributed setting. This group believes that one can calculate a social media ROI through
detailed analysis, reasonable assumptions, and solid data. The Purists view
Social media may be the latest and greatest, but it has to be evaluated in the social media ROI calculations as no different than those calculations used in
context of a holistic marketing strategy. It’s just one facet. Social must be email marketing or other forms of traditional marketing. An adamant purist,
supplemented with email marketing, TV, print, and other marketing vehicles Olivier Blanchard, author of Social Media ROI, unequivocally posits that
to form a cohesive strategy where the sum is greater than the parts. you can calculate an ROI for social media. In fact, he maintains that ROI
measurements are “media-agnostic.”1
According to Blanchard, the problematic, though not impossible, portion of
a social media ROI calculation is linking non-financial events (e.g., website
visits, mentions, likes, shares, Retweets, etc.) to social media financial
impact (e.g., hard numbers). He concedes it is difficult, but with detailed
analysis, solid data, and diligence, numbers can be derived.
The Revisionists
What with so many social media sites these days and so many interaction
types (e.g., Shares, Likes, Retweets, Wall posts, Direct Messages, etc.),
measuring ROI can be difficult since it takes time to convert a Fan, Follower,
or Connection into paying for a product or service, so argue the Revisionists.
They would further add that the social connections you make via Facebook,
LinkedIn or Twitter should be the focus of any effective marketing strategy.
Interactions one has with prospects via social media can shape perceptions,
attitudes, and ultimately actions (e.g., a conversion).
4 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams 5 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 5

4. Key Factors in ROI Calculation
Social in this instance is really about engaging with prospects, nurturing Calculating ROI depends on several factors, many of which are quantifiable.
that relationship, and building up their confidence levels to actually open up There are plenty of tools that can track how many followers, retweets, shares,
their wallet. Even if the nurturing process does not immediately (say, within etc., a profile or identity is generating. Additionally, with the proliferation
six months) lead to a sale, the door remains open for future deals, if the of mobile and geo-location applications, leveraging social media through
company is persistent in its engagement with the prospect. In this respect, distributed environments has never been easier. Greater collaboration and
ROI is not about hard profits initially. It’s about establishing a relationship higher employee productivity are just a couple of the benefits stemming from
and building a level of trust with the prospect that paves the way for future the advancements in social media technologies that should be factored into
business. This measurement also leads us to the reduction of customer any ROI calculation.
churn, an important metric in many industries, especially the mobile
telecommunications industry. After all, it is much more cost-effective Branding
to retain a customer than it is to try and attract a new one. This is one of the factors most often cited by the Revisionists. One of the top
intangible benefits of social media is its branding influence. Of course, brand
At the very least, the intangible factors of loyalty and trust are strengthened protection and enhancement has varying levels of significance, depending on
to the point that the corporate brand has been enhanced and the company’s the industry or individual company. For those organizations where the brand
image is imprinted in the prospect’s mind, should another business is of utmost importance, social can be a compelling medium to attract new
opportunity surface in the future. customers.
You should consider the challenges faced by organizations in the Case in point: Flo the Progressive Girl.
measurement of clicks, likes, comments, shares, and ultimately conversions She’s seems to be everywhere – on TV,
when those communications and conversations happen not between the Facebook, magazines. It’s part of a
corporate social profiles, but between the employee’s individual social concerted effort by Progressive Insurance
profiles and the consumer. to raise the brand profile of the company
through the “mascot.” Progressive’s also
done an effective job at utilizing a mixed-channel strategy regarding social.
One can follow her tweets and view “Flotos” from her Facebook fanpage as
well as get insurance quotes right from her Facebook page. The net result is
over three million Facebook fans, the most of any insurance company.2
6 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | Social Media Success 7 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 7

5. Risk Management exchange of ideas and content by providing analytics to help workers focus
The impact of social can also be felt on the public relations (PR) front. If on those pieces of content that have the most impact. The net result of this
used properly, social can be a tremendous weapon for putting out PR fires. enhanced collaboration is lower operating costs, higher employer productivity,
Perhaps learning from other companies experiences, many organizations and faster time to market. All of these benefits can be translated into hard
these days turn to social to quickly address customer service issues or to own numbers for the ROI calculation. Organizations like IBM and Jive provide
up to mistakes. social business platforms in order to provide this social functionality at an
enterprise level. These tools can be leveraged internally or externally, the
The pizza chain, Papa John’s, recently was in the news when an employee latter enabling supply chain partners and customers to also reap benefits.
typed a racial slur on the receipt of a customer, which was circulated
almost immediately on the social media sites. Effusive apologies were soon Recruiting
issued on Papa John’s Facebook and Twitter pages. In this instance, Papa For many industries, finding, hiring, and retaining qualified workers is an
John’s utilized social to quickly own up to its mistake (it fired the offending issue. The technology industry is a poster child of this dilemma. For instance,
employee) and did not try to make excuses for the employee’s behavior. Had a startup flush with venture capital funding has to scour the landscape for
Papa John’s not reacted quickly, customers may have boycotted the chain, the best and brightest. The problem is that there are thousands of other
causing massive revenue loss and a tarnished reputation, that would have startups doing the same thing for a limited number of qualified resources
required even more financial and human resources to repair. (e.g., developers, QA, product managers).
Many organizations that have yet to figure out how to deal with public Employee retention thus becomes increasingly important when startups
criticism revert to fixing problems the “old way,” or “behind closed doors.” dangle very competitive compensation packages to poach or lure workers to
Several times we’ve heard, “Can you delete that tweet now that we’ve fixed join them. Social media, especially LinkedIn, has emerged as a very effective
your problem?” Transparency is the only way to deal with public criticism, resource for finding candidates and posting job listings. If you are a company
within the appropriate privacy boundaries, of course. on a high-growth trajectory with several job openings, the power of social
cannot be underestimated given its tremendous reach at a relatively low cost.
Collaboration Neither can the power that an open social policy can have in your recruiting
Many organizations have workforces that are dispersed geographically, message. Generation Y’ers (e.g., those born before 1981) are inherently
either in the same country or across the globe. For instance, Facebook and social and have much choice in which organizations they wish to work. We’ve
LinkedIn both allow the creation of groups, which makes it much easier for seen that permitting individuals to use social media safely, versus blocking
like-minded individuals or colleagues to share information and brainstorm them completely, is a key differentiator for organizations in today’s world of
product ideas. Social media engagement platforms expand upon this selective Gen Y’ers.
8 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams 9 Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 9

6. Employees can easily distribute job postings through their networks with Lead Monitoring
the technology available today. To be able to track and see who is sharing or With all the connections, friends, followers, etc., that people tend to have
commenting on your job postings gives you clues on who the influencers are nowadays, it’s a veritable treasure trove of potential business leads. The
in your network and who might be the useful in helping you fill your open notion of “six degrees of separation” couldn’t be more apropos with respect
positions. Recruitment through a trusted network of individuals is more to social media. Instead of utilizing a lead sourcing agency or service,
likely to yield results, as some of the major difficulties faced by organizations organizations can bring this in-house and potentially realize some cost
in convincing candidates to join their firm are overcome by that trusted savings. Engagement platforms today can track leads and give insights as to
relationship. who are the best leads. Moreover, some platforms today enable views from
either the aggregate (firm-wide) or individual (specific agents or advisors) to
Reduction in Customer Churn better assess leads.
Social media can be a fantastic way to retain customers and keep them from
jumping to competitors. For instance, companies can utilize social to provide
special offers, enhance loyalty, and remain engaged with customers such that
they feel an affinity for your brand and service. Customer loyalty programs,
such as frequent flyer plans and special discounts for long-time members,
is an example of social being used to deepen customer relationships.
Calculating hard numbers for customer churn reduction are relatively easy to
ascertain. Metrics such as the number of lost customers and average spend
per customer can both be included in an ROI calculation.
Customer Service
The impact of social also is evident in customer service issues. If used
appropriately, social can be a powerful tool to enhance a company’s customer
service programs. For example, a company might use customer feedback
software, such as from Bazaarvoice, to reduce their customer service costs.
Bazaarvoice analyzed the return rates on Petco.com and found that products
with reviews had return rates 20% less than those without reviews.3 By
reducing the return rates, Petco.com was able to reduce their shipping and
restocking costs.
10 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | Social Media Success 11 Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 11

7. How to Calculate ROI Case Studies
Once you’ve identified your key benefits, you can start calculating your ROI. Large Financial Institution
The following steps, coupled with some sample metrics, can be used to Objective: Sign up new clients
quantify the analysis: The wealth management group of the organization earns fees as a percentage
of assets under management (AUM). As a result, the bank is constantly trying
1. Assign values to your benefits (“Benefits”) to bring in new business so that it can continue to grow revenues from fees.
•• Costs saved by not using a recruiter
•• Cost of posting a job on LinkedIn Plan: Leverage LinkedIn to build rapport with prospects and customers
•• Number of lost customers An advisor had a woman join his LinkedIn network. He monitored her status
•• Average spend per customer updates regularly until a life-changing event happened to her one day,
•• Shipping costs as percentage of customers which compelled him to gather additional information. The advisor followed
•• Product return rates up with a phone call and found out that she wasn’t doing much in the
•• Sales increase due to specific loyalty programs way of financial planning. He continued to utilize LinkedIn to nurture the
relationship, provide relevant content while still remaining compliant with
2. Add up costs of social media marketing campaigns (“Investment”) firm and regulatory guidelines, and ultimately persuaded the prospect to
•• Salaries of specific social media marketing staff and time spent by open an account with the bank.
“other” employees on social outreach
•• Cost of social media management applications (e.g., monitoring,
Result: More assets brought into the firm to manage
listening, compliance, marketing, etc.)
•• $200,000 in stock
•• Any third-party costs (e.g., marketing agencies, graphics designers)
•• $700,000 in 401K rollovers
•• $250,000 annuity
3. Divide Benefits by Investment to arrive at ROI (“The ROI”)
•• $1,000,000 insurance policy
•• Several large trusts set up for the customer
ROI
ASSIGN ADD UP Value of Benefits
VALUES COSTS Divided by Costs
of Social Media
to your benefits of social media
Marketing
marketing
12 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams 13 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 13

8. Regional Financial Institution Splenda4
Objective: Allow financial advisors to compliantly use social media Objective: Build awareness, trial, advocacy, and of course, sales
without tarnishing the brand name of the firm Even though SPLENDA® was launched in 2002, many consumers
A regional financial institution wishes to let their advisors use Twitter. The had yet to adopt it by mid-2010. Well-entrenched competitors still
firm is concerned about protecting the reputation of the company, while still dominated mindshare.
giving the advisors some freedom in what they tweet. The firm policy is to
pre-approve all tweets, e.g., all tweets must undergo a compliance review McNeil, the makers of SPLENDA®, knew that when consumers tried
before being published. SPLENDA® they loved it, recommended it, and continued to use it. So, when
they launched SPLENDA® Minis, McNeil wanted to leverage social media as
Plan: Allow the advisors access to Twitter under the condition that all part of the launch plan. Through influential recommendations and other types
tweets are pre-approved by compliance of social media interactions, their objective could be met.
An advisor at this firm tweeted 93 times. One of the tweets the advisor tried
to post was about Steve Jobs’ death, along with some investment advice on Plan: Exclusive experience and product education
what shareholders should do with Apple stock. The campaign involved 9,200 highly targeted women. By focusing on
prospects most likely to buy, SPLENDA® was able to ensure participation by
Result: Increased book of business while letting advisors maintain their “influencers,” e.g., those consumers who create and share brand content
authenticity of voice more frequently than the average person.
From the 93 tweets mentioned above, the advisor landed a $1 million
prospect, an excellent conversion rate for the minimal amount of resources Trial was an essential part of this campaign, so all participants received
(e.g., financial and time) invested. Regarding the Steve Jobs tweet, the tweet a mailing with product samples to encourage trial and lots of sharing.
was held by compliance and never posted to Twitter. Education was also essential. Consumers needed to understand both how
SPLENDA® is made and its key points of differentiation to most effectively
This case study is a combination of flexibility and compliance. The firm support consideration and adoption. So, participants also received a recipe
wanted to build a book of business without stifling the advisors’ authenticity booklet, a product information guide, and tips for spreading the word.
of voice. In permitting advisors to express their individuality through their
tweets, the firm was still able to manage the brand of the advisor and the Result: Greater reach, more customers acquired, higher sales
firm by putting in place pre-review controls to guard against advisors taking About 300,000 “conversations” happened on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs,
advantage of an emotional topic (e.g., Steve Jobs’ death). including a lift in the volume of online mentions of SPLENDA® during the
campaign period.
14 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | Social Media Success
Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 15 Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 15

9. Enhancing ROI
These conversations reinforced the key brand messages (“fraction of the So, we’ve arrived at an ROI number. What can you do to increase this
calories and different formats to use anywhere”). Coupled with figure? For starters, you can turn to technology to boost your ROI. Social
high-volume trials, the campaign helped to overcome any skepticism empowerment platforms like Socialite Engage can help organizations boost
and other barriers to adoption. their ROI by homing in on those metrics that provide actionable insights.
From here, it becomes a virtuous circle of continuous improvement: you act
In the end, survey data projected strong sales performance from on the insight, which delivers better results, which in turn drives changes in
the campaign: behavior. For instance, by focusing on important connections and followers
• Over 68,000 net new customers for each of the two products – SPLENDA® that have experienced life-changing events recently, these could represent
Granulated and SPLENDA® Minis new business opportunities. Similarly, if someone has “defriended” you,
perhaps you’d want to reach out and find out why.
• 350,000+ total annual purchases
As alluded to earlier, just having a bevy of followers or fans is not enough.
Are they the right friends, followers, and connections? What are they doing
with the content you are posting? Are you actively engaging with them?
Are they actively engaging with you? Are you regularly sending them relevant
content that they respond to? Are they retweeting or sharing this content
with individuals in their network? Is one of your targets a particular center
of influence for you, e.g., one who is so well-connected and well-respected,
350,000
not just in social media circles, but in the area in which you work, or in
PURCHASES
decisions that they make that s/he has the ability to sway people’s views?
Once you’re able to pinpoint this type of data, you can refine your social
media marketing campaigns to make them more effective.
Being able to distribute content easily across the social networks empowers
remote agents and advisors to quickly get relevant content into the hands of
their connections, followers, and fans. Furthermore, tracking how each piece
of content is resonating within a particular network enables advisors and
agents to tweak or refine future marketing efforts based on the data collected
from previous campaigns. Through this iterative process, social media ROI
can be enhanced.
16 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | Social Media Success 17 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 17

10. About Actiance
Actiance helps organizations manage, secure and ensure compliance across Socialite Engage also:
unified communications, collaboration and Web 2.0 applications such as • Aggregates news feed from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter
blogs, wikis and social networks. Actiance’s award-winning platforms are used
• Finds and establishes key connections and tailor your activities to
by 9 of the top 10 US banks and 284 FINRA-regulated firms globally.
match theirs
The Actiance platform allows organizations to gain visibility of applications • Shares pre-approved library and/or tailored content to provide
in use, apply usage and content policies, ensure compliance, and gain authenticity of voice
valuable insights across the communications and collaboration channels in • Leverages crowdsourced content across teams to improve interaction
use. Actiance supports all leading social networks, unified communications, • Fully integrates with compliance controls for content, feature access and
and collaboration providers and IM platforms, including Facebook, LinkedIn, record keeping
Twitter, Google, Yahoo!, AOL, Skype, Cisco, Microsoft, Jive, and IBM.
• Shows engagement, trends and social graph growth through
Actiance is headquartered in Belmont, California. For more information,
advanced analytics
visit www.actiance.com or call 1-888-349-3223.
• Provides gamification tools that enable central content creators to drive
adoption and aggregate results from distributed teams
Socialite Engage
Socialite Engage helps organizations protect their brand and remain
compliant while still allowing their users to maintain their own voice.
Users can enhance their relationships with prospects and customers through References
the sharing of either pre-approved or customized content and can measure
the impact of such content to better refine their engagement efforts.
1
Olivier Blanchard, Social Media ROI, p. 218.
For instance, through the tracking of key connections, users can focus on
those friends or followers who are particularly important to them. 2
SocialEyes, October 2011, p.5.
Users can leverage a pre-populated content library to share information 3
Augie Ray, “The ROI of Social Media Marketing,” Forrester Research, Inc.,
July 16, 2010, p.5.
with their networks or distribute their own content that is routed through
a compliance workflow to protect both the individual and the organization.
4
http://www.bzzagent.com/blog/post/tag/case-study/
18 | Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams 19 Social Media ROI for Distributed Teams | 19

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