The Value of Community Managers

Kevin writes a terrific post about employee value.

In the same department, you have a social media manager.  You're paying this guy $70,000 per year, less than the email manager.  This person is able to quantify the following contribution to the company.

• Facebook Likes increased from 11,439 to 14,903 in the past year.
• Twitter Followers increased from 9,493 to 13,771 in the past year.
• 401 F-Commerce orders and 345 Twitter click-through orders, at $100 AOV (neither program existed in the year prior).
• $74,600 annual demand.
• Profit Flow-Through Rate of 40%.
• Total Profit (not including employee costs) = $74,600 * 0.40 = $29,840.

What is the value of this employee to your company?  What is the potential value of this employee to the future of your company?

You calculate employee value, don't you?

We've begun measuring a few of our client's community managers based upon something similar. The results haven't been dazzling. Some cost more than they generate.

The great challenge facing community managers is identifying, increasing, and communicating the value they offer organizations.

Comments

[David Historian DeWald]

In the example for the Social Media Manager, it fails to give a value on how much business they retained through customer service and support that might have been lost without a social presence.

As much as people try to tie a Social or Community individual to ROI, there are other factors that they can bring that add value for company that are not always quatifiable in dollars and cents.

[Richard Millington]

David, it's an example.

I believe pretty much everything is quantifiable, most people just don't try to quantify it.

For example, since what is the retention rate of customers since they joined the social media platform? Is it higher or lower? What is the value of that increased retention. Divide that by the cost of the community.

What happens if you stop doing any social activity for a month? Is there a noticeable difference in purchases? Do more customers leave? Do people that got service online buy more frequently as a result? By how much?

It's all quantifiable.

[John Norris]

I wonder if some of the less direct ROI is only traceable over a longer period of time. Perhaps longer than management typically track events, or wants to wait.

Quantifying ROI is important work, and the more folks looking deeply into it the better...so thanks!