Mediaboss Marketing

Summary:Harvard Business School professor, Frank V. Cespedes, debates the value of social media and offers important and practical advice to companies and marketers.

Billions of people experience social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as an integral part of their daily life. Social media is where we socialize with friends and cultivate professional relationships. Image by iStockphoto

For brands and corporations, social media is a core part of efforts to engage customers, whether through digital marketing, service and support or other initiatives that touch buyers. The high value of social media is evident to virtually every marketing executive and practitioner.

Despite obvious value, there are some who claim that social media offers little ROI. Among these are Frank V. Cespedes, a faculty member at the Harvard Business School. Frank published a post on the Harvard Business Review site arguing that most businesses do not gain sufficient ROI for their social media investments.

Disagreeing with this perspective, I followed with a blog post explaining why I believe Frank is wrong. Several top marketing practitioners commented in support.

Also read: Is social media really a waste of time? Harvard professor gets it wrong

Well, social media being what it is, Frank has written a rebuttal, which is published below. Although pained at Frank's comment that my post "betrays a lack of economic logic," I take some comfort in the irony of this playing out on social media rather than in private. I'm sure even Frank would agree that social media does bring its own rewards.

In the digital world, ROI is a function of both hard dollars and the currency of attention that can translate into sales. In this case, sales of Frank's book can only benefit from our public discussion. Irony or reality? You decide.

Thank you to Frank V.Cespedesfor writing this guest post. Engaging and interesting debate is truly one of the best parts of our connected, digital, and social world.

The following guest post was written by Frank V. Cespedes. It is unedited except for the addition of links:

Read more from the original source:
Social media ROI smackdown: What your business can't afford to ignore