These days it seems every agency includes a social media component in its client offerings. From managing Twitter accounts to constructing LinkedIn pages and Facebook fan pages, we all can claim some competence in social media. But it’s been hard to prove ROI to clients, which makes it tough to monetize as a service.

Now Forrester has come out with a report, ‘The ROI of Social Media Marketing’, which looks at the ROI of social media from four perspectives: digital, brand, financial and risk management. The report’s behind a client firewall, but ReadWriteWeb’s Mike Melanson sums it up here.

Bottom line: if you (or a client) doubt the value of all the effort spent on social media, you’re doing something wrong. (NB: Add one more thing to the list of things you’re doing wrong.)

But wait, there’s good news here as well.

Social media is another content channel. At a time when content channels are an inch deep and a mile wide, strategizing a social media program around the axes of brand, digital, financial and risk management lets you hit each axis of influence. It makes a lot more sense than trying to justify the effort by counting retweets or fans.

A successful social media presence starts with a focus on value and content, and is realized when the agency and the client work together to funnel valuable content through every available channel. It’s absolutely worth the effort, even when the metrics are tough to measure.

Social media is an investment, and like all investments it is possible to track ROI. We’d be interested to hear how you measure the ROI, and if you agree with the vectors proposed by Forrester.

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