Lifetime Value of a Customer and the Failing of ROI in Social Media (in current efforts)

I shared two posts that caught my eye today in my shared posts from my Google Reader on different topics, but I saw the most appropriate connect between them.

Urs Gattiker wrote a post at Social Media Today on “Measuring Social Media ROI: Why It Fails” and Seth Godin wrote a post on “Embracing Lifetime Value”.  I found them in that order and interestingly, in my comment to Urs I suggested that the challenge he (we) might be having is in trying to calculate an ROI of Social Media on a campaign basis, whereas Seth’s post was about the short-sightedness of companies in estimating the value of an customer and what it is worth or acquire and maintain the relationship with any given customer.

The crux of my comment to Urs wad that social media is still being thought of in many circles as YAMC (yet another media channel) for a brand.  My point is that it is not YAMC and for brands that continue to attempt to treat it as such, they are very likely to have continuing frustration at the investment and failure surrounding their efforts.