New ROI of blogging report from Forrester

Eversince Google's high-profile buyout of YouTube, I was wondering about ROI and how this can be extended to blogs. During my quest to understand this better.. I landed on Forrester to find very interesting research.

The ROI Of Blogging: The “Why” And “How” Of External Blog Accountability

Many large companies stand on the brink of blogging, yet they are unwilling to take the plunge. Others, having dove in early, now face the challenge of managing existing blogs without the ability to show that they effectively support business goals. While blogging’s value can’t be measured precisely, marketers will find that calculating the ROI is easier than it looks. Following a three-step process, marketers can create a concrete picture of the key benefits, costs, and risks that blogging presents and understand how they are likely to impact business goals. This, in turn, enables marketers to answer the key questions, such as whether to blog or not to blog, or to make smart choices about an existing blog.

and follow-up research

Calculating The ROI Of Blogging: A Case Study, A Look At The ROI of General Motor’s FastLane Blog

Forrester used the process outlined in the first document in this series to calculate the ROI of General Motors’ FastLane blog; but, this is not merely an exercise to generate a number. Using scenarios, General Motors can understand the risk and impact of increases and decreases of a key metric — the number of press mentions — on the value of the blog. With this knowledge in hand, General Motors can make critical businesses decisions, such as whether to invest heavily in innovations that will rekindle press attention.

Metrics reflect the benefits:

These research deploy a framework to measure benefits of blogs.
Some common benefits highlighted are:

• increased brand visibility,
  
• savings from customer insights,
• reduced impact from negative user-generated content,
• increased sales efficiency

Very Interesting study