[Webcast Q&A 3-17-10] Building a business case and showing the ROI of online communities [tapping into the SEO goldmine] [ Edited ]

[IngridS]

You mentioned that online communities pay for themselves. How would I go about building a business case for a community? Where would I obtain quantitative assumptions?

[PhilS Lithium Alumni (Retired)]

Start here, on the Lithosphere. You can search for ROI and find a wealth of resources.

This page has some good links.

A few other resources:

* For support-oriented communities, we have actually built an ROI calculator into the software, that uses financial assumptions that you provide along with interaction data from the community.

* In the analyst community, Forrester's Dr. Natalie Petouhoff has done a lot of great work on social media ROI for customer service. She's all over Twitter: @drnatalie.

* In the Social CRM community, Kathy Hermann has a product that helps you determine ROI for social projects. She's all over Twitter at @KathyHermann and her web site is http://pathlightsolutions.com.

Finally, we're working with BusinessOnline to develop some case studies around SEO benefits of communities. If you're a Lithium customer, particularly if you're a new Lithium customer just launching, let us know if you'd like to participate in that and we will work together with you on it.

Phil