This week we’ve asked five guest bloggers to contribute to the Our Views section of Reputation Online. Today’s post comes from Neil Kleiner, head of social media at Havas Media

Ask any social media practitioner in the UK to give an example of a brand that has generated tangible revenue from social media and you’ll hear the same four-letter word over and over again. As an industry we’re still desperately clinging on to the (admittedly brilliant) Dell and Twitter case study as the ultimate ace up our sleeves when someone questions the validity of social media marketing. Two things worry me about this. First, given the pace of social media, why are we clinging on to case studies that are nearly three years old? Second, why do we still have to justify social media to our clients? This is the same problem and has the same solution: we need to practise what we preach more.

If more brands shared in such an open way, then perhaps the world of social media would be a place that was slightly easier to understand, less full of confusion and therefore more trusted and more invested in by brands. Hey, we’d all make more money and that’s something we can all agree we want more of, right? The responsibility has to lie with agencies, though. We need to encourage our clients to share and celebrate their successes and failures publicly, and to provide a meaningful and open contribution to the dialogue.

So let’s practise what we preach. Let’s be a bit more open, a bit more honest. Let’s make sure we benchmark our campaigns so we have worthwhile data to share in the first place. Let’s encourage our clients to share their successes and failures so that we, as an industry, can learn, evolve and move forward in the world of social media

We advise our clients on how to be open, honest and transparent and yet, as agencies working in the social space, we very rarely share case studies, ROI metrics or measurement tactics among ourselves. Why is this? Surely the more success stories we share that are backed up with tangible delivery objectives will only make our lives easier?

Last week, Domino’s, one of my clients at Arena Quantum, publically stated the amount of revenue attributed to its social media marketing initiatives. The mix of its social communities, affiliate marketing and superfans programmes has been responsible for driving sales growth through its ecommerce unit by 61.4%.

The IAB has done some brilliant work to open up the conversation on social media measurement while damning the agency culture of #FAIL – an industry gloating on the failures of our peers. We’re all still learning how social media works and I urge us to move towards a culture of unity rather then one of rivalry, bitching and closed thinking. You have my word that Havas Media will approach social in this spirit. Who’s with me?

Tags: dell, guest bloggers, havas, neil kleiner, open, social media