Value and ROI from Social Media: What can Health-Sciences learn from best practices in Retail?

In my previous blogpost, ‘Will Social Media find meaningful usage in a Healthcare context’, I have elucidated  how social media is being adopted and leveraged in a Healthcare context and the new business and engagement models being rendered viable by social media, as well as best practices thereof.

However, the million dollar question that companies and organizations today find themselves challenged with is, “What is the value and return on investment (ROI) from Social Media initiatives to justify continued and incremental investments”? This blogpost will persevere to address this question using a ‘7 Stage Social Media (and mobility) Value and ROI Life cycle Model’ (figure 1 and table 1 below) proposed by this author, enumerating best practices in retail and consumer products. (more…)