A really thorough criticism of the ROI Calculator, for sure. The author makes some excellent points. Since the calculator was submitted to the world for feedback its all welcome - but I think that the idea what I've posted is that it should be a way of looking of things... its not about the particulars that are cited. PR Stories may not have any value to your orgnanization - but what is?

Hi Koen; You're right- the difficult-to-measure social capital benefits are by far greater - the idea here is that sometimes we have to communicate monetary benefits to stakeholders. And if we try to see things through the "eyes" of the organization, we often find other places that organization is expending capital that is comprible to social media activities.

What are the drivers for value? It is expressed in money, but benefits are more on knowledge sharing and creation I think, items hard to express in numbers.

Would be most interested in your thoughts and response to the commentary shredding this calculator here: http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/ho...

I'm surprised no one else has left a comment about that already.

Hi Jess; The 'plugged-in' values are for example only... you can edit them to fit your needs.

Nice tool there. Anything to help entrepreneurs and investors evaluate opportunities and prepare realistic proformas and expectations is worthwhile. I look forward to the evolution of the SocMed ROI Calculator!

who determined what the "values" were in this calculator? They are already plugged in...

Great tool - thanks for developing! It's something we've all been thinking about for awhile now and it's great to actually see it done. It's always nice to have additional tools to validate our thought process for what we know is true but can't necessarily tie to a number. Kudos!!

Sarah @ GY&K