Where’s the ROI?

At what point is it worth it to invest in a new user interface? For Facebook, the answer is “right now.” In the last week, the social network giant rolled out a new design for its homepage, to mixed reviews. The design isn’t bad per se – but the fact that the design was last changed in October (again, with feedback on both ends of the spectrum) makes a lot of people wonder, is it time to optimize again, or is it too much?

Facebook’s new design seems to indicate a stronger desire to push chat and keep users on the site for longer sessions. Unfortunately, the friend requests, messages, and notifications icons get a little lost in this new design—wose considering these are some of the main attractions to repeat visitors. Oddly, updates from the Facebook pages you’re a fan of her even more lost than before — which is a bit strange considering Facebook’s push to businesses.

The news isn’t all bad: the search box now has the spotlight, though the placement might take some a while to get used to. Swapping out the confusing “News Feed” and “Live Feed” options with “Top News” and “Most Recent” is another step in the right direction as well.

Should your business “pull a Facebook” and redesign? There’s a good chance your budget for redesign and optimization isn’t as big as Facebook’s; therefore, you really need to consider how broken the current user interface is before calculating whether or not to redesign. Optimizing navigation and other UI elements is generally a good use of your budget, but there’s definitely a law of diminishing returns that comes into play in this area.

Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post asked his readers how long this new design will last. Building on that point: do you think this design was worth it? Where does the tradeoff between optimization and consistency of experience reside?

Related articles:

• Facebook’s redesign shows how important search is for social networks (freshnetworks.com)
• Facebook Begins Rolling Out New Home Page Design (Eric Eldon/Inside Facebook) (techmeme.com)
• Facebook Gets Another Facelift (blogs.wsj.com)

Social Media

TrendsSpotting just-released a report predicting changes to the social media landscape in 2010. One of the key takeaways is that 2010 is the year that social media ROI starts to get measured and monitored on a consistent basis.

While the definition of ROI is evolving to better fit the world of relationships and networks, the ability to demonstrate ROI in hard numbers — not in followers or fans — will become a baseline business requirement in 2010.

-Ustrategy co-founder Ravit Lichtenberg

If Lichtenberg is correct, that can only bode well for future investment in this emerging area. There is too much pressure from senior management in many cases to post a brands sentence or followers totals at the risk of sacrificing actual business value. The principles of the long tell demand that brands approach social media marketingin a very targeted manner so as to attract the right people rather than just any people.

Tracking the return on investment on a social media campaign will require, to many organizations’ dismay, making an actual investment. When it comes to human resources, social media campaigns tend to be woefully understaffed. Connie Bensen has a good point in her article where she predicts that 2010 is the year the Community Manager becomes mainstream. if social media is all about conversation marketing, it’s imperative that organizations have a dedicated resource on their payroll for keeping the conversation going. indeed, once the proper investment has been made, it will be easier for businesses to see what the true return for their efforts is.

Check out Trendspotting’s 2010 Social Media Influencers Trend Predictions below:

Social Media Community Manager, Investment, Marketing, Rate of return