The discussion is maybe not new but for certain not uninteresting. The question arises over and over – for the companies in the area of social media marketing – concerning the monetizing benefits of social media efforts these companies could actually gain. At the same time the old classical marketers are still leaning on the classical ROI concept for social media. Hence, a prominent question surfaces, whether the adoption of social media in marketing can really withstand the classical application of ROI.

The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is like you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.

Jason Falls is right with his appraisals. The dogmatic application of ROI does not really fit into the field of social media. How conversations and user opinions should be numerated in monetize units. Even Katie Delahaye Paine doubts the classical ROI concept for user generated media – for her social media monitoring and its results are the core points in measuring the success of social media efforts in marketing.

Maybe the Holy Grail of measuring success for the application in the area of professional communication does not lie in the area of ROI, but instead in data collection and analysis of user opinions.

Lewis Green shows with the concept of Value Reference Model quite clear, which alternatives companies have to measure success of social media efforts beyond the concept of ROI. The value reference model assesses the dialog with target groups and consumers by means of monetary savings in all areas of lifetime product cycle and therefore goes far beyond a simple marketing approach. This approach considers consumers in social media as the central gravity in innovation, production and marketing. Especially social media platforms like customer blogs or communities offer the optimal medium for this approach.

Value is not measured quarterly nor necessarily annually. It is instead measured over the lifetime of a product, service, process, and individual customer sales. It cannot be measured on a single tool but instead measured on ongoing benefits and results as determined by the lifetime of the product, service, process and customer.

This approach shows once again that each campaign of companies in the area of social media is only a starting point. To accomplish a successful Value Reference Model, a long term engagement in social media must be planned. If a company wants to build a long lasting and good relation to its target groups, then it has to nurse this over time. The debates in the U.S shows pretty clear, how dogmatic the definition ROI is and how new methods are badly needed to measure success of company’s efforts with respect to the collaborative medias. The old fashioned expectation patterns of marketers – which expect certain turnover by investing certain amount in one particular media- don’t apply anymore in social media. In user generated media, marketers must talk to their target groups and at the same time igniting the interest of their target groups over the product to achieve the ROI. Meaning, marketers have to offer added value for their target groups in social media and thus, the investment of pro-consumer will pay off in the end. Only with this kind of added value for consumers in social media, users will bind to brands and then even be in the end user generated marketers and product developers. If companies did achieve this, they would definitely be successful in the long run. From this point of view, Value Reference Model does hold strong significance.