MyCIMA

Calling all digital natives

Posted: Wednesday 16 December 2009 by Louise Ross
Replies : 3
Category: Strategic management / economics
Keywords: Beyond enthusiasm, social media, Web 2.0
Louise Ross's picture
Previously I commented that marketers and IT people are dominant in discussions about the corporate use of social media territory. The former have imposed their definition of return on investment – take your pick from “market share”, “brand awareness”, “cost per sales lead” and several more listed in the CIMA publication 'Return on Ideas' (PDF).

This report found that not a single one of the marketers surveyed defined ROI correctly from a financial perspective. My conclusion was that we need more accountants in this space.

It’s not as if we’re technophobes. Accountants are used to productivity tools in our working lives – is there anyone who uses spreadsheets more than we do? – and we’re no strangers to social media. For example, a survey last year by CCH, reported on AccountingWeb found that accountants were 50 per cent more likely to have a Facebook page than the general public.

So why aren’t we involved in corporate assesments of the potential of social media? Is it an age thing? Do we not see this as our territory? Are we hanging fire until the benefits are more proven?

I’d be interested in your views, as would Chris Westrup who is currently carrying out CIMA-funded research into accountants’ use of Web 2.0. Whether you consider yourself a “digital native” or not, where do you sit in your organisation – with the enthusiasts for social media, with the sceptics or outside the issue entirely?

Tracking Social Media ROI

Posted by Ryan Scaife on Tuesday 03 August 2010 13:35

Hi Louise,

I work for an SME in digital marketing - we are constantly utilising new tecnologies and applications to help track marketing spend and ROI. These include Adinsight - a call monitoring tool to track telephone leads from particular marketing activities; Google Adwords conversion tracking on PPC spend; Google Analytics for e-Commerce alongside any other paid tracking solutions.

These strategies all help portray ratios for leads, opportunities and deals helping the marketing manager to backup the spend and the ROI generated.

Accountants should be working with Marketing Managers to help plan out the most cost-effective and profitable Social Media strategies - not just bean counting at the end of the month.

 Ryan Scaife

Epiphany Solutions

Social media ROI

Posted by Louise Ross on Thursday 05 August 2010 17:38

thanks for your commment Ryan.  Couldn't agree with you more about the beancounter comment - its the nature of management accounting that we provide solutions (rather than looking to standards as financial accountants have to) and we work with all disciplines within our organisation.  Management accountants and marketeers should have a close relationship - we both have to deal with uncertain and incomplete data which comes from external sources such as market and customer data.  But sometimes the relationship is a bit strained - one of the conclusions from the Return on Ideas report.

BTW are you a CIMA member, Ryan? Do you use the marketing or accounting definition of ROI?

Social media ROI

Posted by Ryan Scaife on Friday 06 August 2010 15:52
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Hi Louise,

I had a quick look at your Return on Ideas report and actually sent this onto our Marketing Manager to aid her thinking and development.

I'm ACMA yes. The point of view I've taken above was solely from a marketing perspective. We aim to have every manager in the business running their departments as if they are their own MD's. This includes Marketing as it is a core revenue generator focussing on a variety of metrics - the one which mostly interests us accountants is the Return on Investment! However, we cannot stifle our most innovative department with a heavy-line approach totally fixed on the bottom-line (interestingly as Google say, "we celebrate our failures!".

The variety of tools available online can help to track ROI (from a financial perspective!) even for brand awareness and social media campaigns, usually for minimal costs. Have a look into tools such as Radian6 (brand awareness tracking) and Adinsight which should be a marketers dream tool as this becomes their platform to sell such marketing strategies at board level.

Ryan Scaife

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