It was social’s time, and the living was easy. For years, B2C marketers told us that they didn’t need to make a business case for their social investments because budgets were easy to come by; social was rapidly growing and brands clamored to be present on social networks. But a decade later, executive teams are demanding proof of social ROI. In fact, Forrester received 132 inquiries on the topic of measuring social’s success in the past year alone. Have your answers at the ready. Use a business case to proactively address management’s concerns by mapping how social technologies will usher value into your enterprise. To succeed:

  • Follow the POST process. You can’t build a business case without first understanding what social tactics will benefit the business. Complete the POST (people, objectives, strategy, and technology) process to determine your strategy and what it will add to your marketing goals. 
  • Outline the costs for the investment. Clients often assume their current organization can absorb social marketing’s investment but are then surprised by costs associated with time from internal teams (like legal and customer service) and agencies who need to contribute strategic thinking, process alignment, and content creation, as well as costs for the technologies that support social efforts.
  • Make the case for broader business value. Social technologies help more than just the marketing organization. Social data and collaboration tools benefit groups such as customer service, product development, and recruiting. Build these expanded use cases into your business case to help secure funding and stakeholder buy-in.