Yesterday in the city of Barcelona, I attended to a forum called Internet Marketing 2.0 (organized by http://www.bitlonia.com), and just now I’ve read a article called: “Will social media bring ROI?”. From both resources I could get different and interesting points of view.

From one side, the boost on the importancy of Social Marketing / Marketing 2.0 or whatever way you want to call it, in the Mkt strategy of a company, the size of facebook (400 Millon, personally this is not as attractive as they want to sell, the 3rd country, yeah but with how many languages? and social class or purchase power??? Not so attractive to me as a Industry), and the results a chain of Hotels got after implementing social media managiment.

But as always, they present number but not inversion, and even the results are not that clear to the own marketer (in this case a woman who hardly could manage to use the internet and marketing words, again my humble opinion).

And from the other side I see a research, done by a US company about the feeling of the marketers concerning the ROI od Social media. This is been a big question, not now, but since the Social media started to grow big, my question is, does this works for Industry?

I mean, a company that sells ink, or a multinational like CEMEX? who’s selling to another industry or big companies? For now, the closest tool we have is Linked in (if I’m well informed) and in my opinion (even if it’s chaging) is much more related to Human Resources instead of business.

So, is this Social 2.0 comming to the Industry world?! will a chinese company be able to hook up with a brazilien partner thru facebook? or will twitter bring accuerated information on the level of deals going arounda specific market?

Internet is very good to microsegmented mass media (this means you reach who you want (or at least you think you do) and say their language, telling them what they wanna hear) but this is for the individual? what abot medium to large comapnies?! What’s your opinion?!

Down here I leave you the article about SM ROI – Enjoy it

One-half of companies have a social strategy A majority of US marketing professionals claim social media is now “invaluable” to their business, according to April 2010 research from online marketing firm R2integrated.

While relatively few marketers reported social was pointless and overhyped or too complicated to deal with, most are still not increasing revenues or otherwise profiting from their social efforts.

Although one-half of respondents said they had a social strategy in place—considered critical for success in the social space—only 35% thought they were making money. Strategy does help, though. Respondents who said they profited were twice as likely to have a formal strategy.

They were also more likely to have staff dedicated to managing social media. Marketers’ main goal in implementing a strategy was better lead generation, followed by brand monitoring. The biggest obstacle for social strategies was not having enough data to come up with a measure of return on investment.

Management buy-in was also a problem, and more than one-fifth of respondents said their audience was not active on social media. “Marketers clearly recognize the need for, and see the potential of, social media, but are still trying to develop models that increase real engagement which then leads to profitability—if that’s a goal for implementing a social strategy,” said Matt Goddard, CEO of R2integrated, in a statement.

“Despite the presence and popularity of social media, many companies remain relatively unfamiliar with its practices, pundits, and principles,” he said. Marketing management firm Unica reported in March 2010 that strategic integration of social with other marketing efforts varied by channel. MarketingSherpa found that in late 2009 only one-quarter of social media marketers had reached the strategic phase.

Marketers split on whether social media will deliver measurability

It’s no secret that online marketers care about measurability. Six in 10 respondents to Datran Media’s “4th Annual Marketing & Media Survey” said measuring and understanding their audience was a priority, and more than 87% said accurate online audience measurement was at least somewhat important for driving increased brand awareness, revenues or performance.

Bringing hard metrics to the realm of social media remains a challenge, however, with marketers worldwide in disagreement over whether 2010 will be the year they see quantifiable results from their efforts. Just over one-half think they will, but nearly four in 10 are unsure.

Datran’s respondents—who are heavily invested in the social space, with about 72% having Facebook and Twitter profiles—were most likely to track all their online campaigns based on clicks (72%), conversions (59.2%) and impressions (58.4%). Conversions were considered the most important metric to track.

There is a leap, however, between finding appropriate metrics and monitoring them on the one hand, and quantifying results on the other. Marketers must tie the social metrics they settle on directly to business goals, such as increased sales and leads, before social media return on investment can be quantified.