Blog post October 2009

Our for-profit clients often challenge us to show them new ways to improve their ROI on online engagement and social media technology. It's not hard to show how improved customer satisfaction and increasing self-service can reflect directly on the bottom line.

We're now being asked more and more by not-for-profit organisations and charities to show them how their online activities can translate into benefits for them as an organisation - some of the less obvious and palpable benefits.

As always, the best way to answer the question is to think about real life. Personally I find joining an existing community (like a sports club) a fairly stressful business.

A key factor in the success of your community is demonstrating that it can deliver results. This is linked to the fact that the role of the community manager has risen in importance in the private sector as how they can help generate value is better appreciated.