What's the ROI of a LinkedIn post?

What we’ve all heard:

“What was the ROI of that LinkedIn post I asked you to write for me last week?” - your CEO that doesn’t understand marketing

What we wanna say, but don’t know how:

It’s all about the ROI of the channel, not the individual piece of content.

Every B2B marketer has probably faced this at some point or another: You have a great, high-value piece of content, but some C-Suite Dick Dastardly demands that you prove the ROI, presumably while twirling their mustache nefariously. Some marketers have even internalized that voice of unreason and think that’s what they’re supposed to do.

The thing is, impact takes time. And smart marketers understand this.

As Chris Walker points out: You don’t measure success by one trip to the gym.

It’s the accumulation of effort that gives you washboard abs, twitchy pectorals, and a protein-shake sponsorship promising enough whey to cure world hunger.

How do you measure ROI at the channel level? Self-reported attribution for create-demand channels and software-based attribution for capture-demand channels.

Our take: We wholeheartedly agree with Chris on this one.

You don’t brush your teeth once and give up when no one asks you to Winter Formal. You don’t take one guitar lesson with a great teacher and immediately start squeezing yourself into tiny leather pants like Yngwie Malmsteen.

And for the love of God, you don’t measure the ROI of a single piece of content.

Your turn:

Did we miss something? Is there ever a time you should measure ROI for individual pieces of content? Should Dick Dastardly be allowed to bring Muttley to work?