what would Dresden do to craft and finalize the value proposition and product offering for Online Advertisers Social? He refused to mislead clients about metrics, but everyone seemed to want something impossible.

Could a proprietary metric be built to measure campaign and community management value? How should metrics be reported to clients, as perfectly objective measures or as a

probabilistic model?

CASE STUDY MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: MEASURING SOCIAL MEDIA RETURN ON INVESTMENT Introduction Harry Dresden, a digital strategist at Online Advertisers, looked up at the wall in front of him. The wall was full of temporary marker notes, arrows, bullet points and dates. Matthew Bilbilly, one of the co-founders of Online Advertisers, and Dresden, had created the wall to visually map out Online Advertisers' new social media division, Online Advertisers Social. After three weeks of research, Dresden and Bilbilly had devised a potential value proposition and completed the competitive industry and internal analyses to identify a potential path forward. As a new social media company, management wanted Online Advertisers Social to carve out its own niche, rather than competing directly with other social media companies with more money and experience. Offering a value proposition that leveraged Online Advertisers' strengths while creating a unique point of differentiation was crucial. In devising this, Dresden needed a solution to the existing dilemma, social media metrics. Dresden's research on the social media marketing industry revealed that proprietary analytics and success metrics were two major client concerns. Marketers were clearly starting to appreciate the value in marketing through social media; however, few understood how to define or quantify that value. The nascent and complex nature of social media marketing had made corporations wary of social media marketing firms with value propositions that pushed creativity on the implementation side without solid metrics and reporting. The general client sentiment was that creativity alone could not justify marketing spend, especially when comparing social media marketing with other marketing initiatives competing for the same dollars. Dresden summed up his views on social media measurement in a conversation with Mitchell Wong, head of affiliate marketing at Online Advertisers: Social media measurement is a huge bubble in this industry. So many companies are saying, Here is how you figure out your social media ROI in a few easy steps, now buy my tool today ..." They know corporations want an easy answer and they're preying on that weakness. However, the answer isn't that simple. How do you measure something that starts on the internet, moves offline, then comes back onto the internet, then moves back offline again, in an unpredictable manner? How do you measure human behaviour without making a few assumptions about probability? Anybody who tells me all I have to do is enter 10 easy to find income statement and balance sheet figures to receive a magical social media ROI figure is praying that ignorance pays. . . . That's just not how human behaviour works, and social media is human. It looked like there might not be a magical figure to represent the complexity that was social media, but Dresden had to find a way to represent a social media marketing initiative's success or failure somehow. This required starting with an analysis of what had made successful social media campaigns successful and identifying differentiating factors that could be named and, hopefully, measured. Conclusion Dresden stared at a public Syncapse report on his desk. The report clearly stated that a Facebook "friend" was worth Cdn$136.38. After all the analyses, Dresden found it annoying that a company as complex and metric-focused as Syncapse would be willing to reduce its Facebook friends to one value. After reading the report in full, Dresden was even more perturbed. The design of the study was unscientific; all of Syncapse's measures were situation-specific without much of a case for external validity. Even within those situations, the measures were lacking, Dresden knew that many companies struggled to accurately calculate social media ROI, but presented externally to existing and prospective clients that there was a "magic formula. Given this competitive reality, what would Dresden do to craft and finalize the value proposition and product offering for Online Advertisers Social? He refused to mislead clients about metrics, but everyone seemed to want something impossible. Could a proprietary metric be built to measure campaign and community management value? How should metrics be reported to clients, as perfectly objective measures or as a probabilistic model? Dresden began to think of social media management as very similar to brand management. Spending a dollar today could help create and sustain loyalty over the long term, but how would the message be delivered to a client who wanted to know exactly how much their money would make? Dresden also had to seriously consider the value proposition of Online Advertisers Social. With such a strong creative team driving Online Advertisers' success, it seemed nearly impossible to solely focus the value proposition on data-driven analytics. Dresden summed up his views on social media measurement in a conversation with Mitchell Wong, head of affiliate marketing at Online Advertisers: Social media measurement is a huge bubble in this industry. So many companies are saying. "Here is how you figure out your social media ROI in a few easy steps, now buy my tool today ..." They know corporations want an easy answer and they're preying on that weakness. However, the answer isn't that simple. How do you measure something that starts on the internet, moves offline, then comes back onto the internet, then moves back offline again, in an unpredictable manner? How do you measure human behaviour without making a few assumptions about probability? Anybody who tells me all I have to do is enter 10 easy to find income statement and balance sheet figures to receive a magical social media ROI figure is praying that ignorance pays. . . . That's just not how human behaviour works, and social media is human It looked like there might not be a magical figure to represent the complexity that was social media, but Dresden had to find a way to represent a social media marketing initiative's success or failure somehow. This required starting with an analysis of what had made successful social media campaigns successful and identifying differentiating factors that could be named and, hopefully, measured. Online Advertisers - A Company History In 2009, Online Advertisers was born because the two owners realized that they had the intellectual ability to succeed on the web. Online Advertisers was originally an online web development and design company. During the first year of operations Online Advertisers acquired a niche of start-ups and young businesses to build a portfolio. After two years, the company grew at an exponential rate and became larger, as a result, it had acquired its corporate olimonin work with start Online Advertisers - A Company History In 2009, Online Advertisers was born because the two owners realized that they had the intellectual ability to succeed on the web. Online Advertisers was originally an online web development and design company. During the first year of operations Online Advertisers acquired a niche of start-ups and young businesses to build a portfolio. After two years, the company grew at an exponential rate and became larger, as a result, it had acquired its corporate clients. Online Advertisers continued to work with start- ups, taking equity in a number of digital companies from a variety of industries, as they came online. With positive cash flow and an office filled with 12 employees and only two years of operations the owners had been constantly seeking new ways to grow revenue streams. Online Advertisers had a strong in-house creative team, and the team had been able to leverage its creativity and intuitive talents to acquire clients. In the past, the creative team had been the driving force for much of Online Advertisers strategy and success. Online Advertisers had recently started an affiliate marketing company and introduced a highly customizable ecommerce platform. The social media division was an integral new area of growth for the company. Both owners had high hopes for the division, as social media marketing margins were some of the best business-to-business (B2B) margins on the web. The company had named its social media division, Online Advertisers Social, and already had two clients through previous web development relationships. Both clients were very happy with Online Advertisers personable service and ability to produce results, but there were issues with expressing those results in a standard, metric-based form. To expand the division into a larger revenue generator, some direction was needed. Online Advertisers Social needed a high-level strategy, paired with streamlined internal processes, of which should be driven by a sustainable value proposition. This was why Online Advertisers hired Harry Dresden to analyze the social media marketing landscape and learn what Online Advertisers Social should offer. After three weeks of research Dresden and Roth had Advertisers Social should offer. After three weeks of research, Dresden and Roth had devised what they felt was a solid strategy for the new division. The value proposition for Online Advertisers Social was simple and best summarized in three words: Agile (able to react quickly to client needs). Analytical (data-based management), and Social (keeping in mind that consumers are people to be well treated). The only problem Dresden had with the current value proposition was that it did not leverage the creative team and had Adpioneers directly competing with larger competitors on analytics. Equipped with a strong in-house creative team, Online Advertisers Social was capable of campaign management and graphics design on the fly. In the past, the creative team had proven to be effective in both web development and social media campaign creation. Thus, should the team be better represented in the proposition? If a client received a negative comment or customer complaint on their Twitter page, the project team could diffuse the situation within minutes, before things had the opportunity to get out of control. Online Advertisers Social had shown that it could monitor and manage corporate social media while leaving marketing departments to their core competencies. However, when it came to analytics and metrics, existing capabilities were absent. Online Advertisers used a number of listening tools to manage campaigns with effectiveness, but there were still no tried-and-tested metrics or formulas to show its clients the value for money. Many of Online Advertisers clients were smaller companies with little insights into their consumer base. On the one hand this made effective social media marketing a difficult task; on the other hand, it opened up the opportunity to provide businesses with data on their target market as a value-added service. Marketing on the Web Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing and e- marketing, is generally divided into three major groups: search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (or per impression or per action), and social media marketing Marketing on the Web Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing and e- marketing, is generally divided into three major groups: search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click (or per impression or per action), and social media marketing, Search Engine Optimization Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving a website or webpage's search ranking on Internet search engines. Search engine optimization is a form of organic traffic generation because website owners do not pay the search engine (such as Google or Bing) to be optimized, but rather they will optimize their placement on a search engine in order to direct search engine users to a website/webpage through the search engine's search algorithm. Pay-per-click Pay-per-click is a method of marketing that places advertisements on websites as texts or graphics. When a consumer clicks on an advertisement, a predetermined "cost-per-click" is paid to the website owner from the advertiser. Alternative methods of this model are pay-per- impression (every time someone sees the advertisement, the website owner is paid, regardless of whether the user clicks or not) and pay-per-action (every time someone buys because of the advertisement, the website owner is paid). Social Media & Marketing Social media use has grown immensely over the past five years, across all demographics. Today, Facebook has more than 750 million users, while Twitter has more than 175 million and YouTube nearly 500 million. Due to the exponential growth of social media users, user time spent on social media sites, and the high level of consumer engagement possible while on social media, corporations have started to take social media seriously