Burgess COMMENTARY
The use of social media to improve a company's ROI is one thing, but the use of social media to improve the performance of the economic activities with respect to impact on people and planet is very much a different thing. A very large number of things that need to be done, cannot be done using the money profit model, but they have huge value impact on people. Wasteful consumption that does a lot for company profit but rather little for people and a lot of bad for planet is a business model that should have been consigned to the dustbin of history a long time ago. Peter Burgess - TrueValueMetrics Multi Dimension Impact Accounting
Peter Burgess

Social Media Gives Companies Positive ROI

Innovative companies are flocking to social media as if it were some kind of superpower. Unlike a comic book hero, however, social media provides very real benefits. Many U.S. companies are getting tangible, positive ROI from their social media efforts, according to a recent survey from Tata Consultancy Services.

And organizations that are fully exploiting all of social media's potential are getting faster, better insights into their customers, thereby enabling them to build brand loyalty, expand their customer base and create more successful products. 'We are well on our way toward being an always-on world,' says Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Tata's CEO and managing director. 'Social networking sites are driving this change.

[In our research,] companies that realized maximum gains from social media viewed it more than just a marketing channel. These companies use social media to hold meaningful conversations with their loyalists, evangelize their products to those who aren't and listen to the voices of discontented customers.'

The findings divide companies into the categories of social network 'leaders' (organizations getting the most benefit from social media) and 'followers' (those getting the least). More than 650 U.S. companies that market directly to consumers took part in the research.