Business owners–understandably–want to be sure about ROI. Business owners want to not throw money into an empty pit.
Consultants, invariably want no accountability for ROI. They want to say that you’re not doing enough, and that the solution to the problem is more money shoved at them.
The truth is ROI is hard to measure. Clicks back to your site is not what social media marketing is about. That’s broadcasting, and Adsense does a better, more efficient job at getting raw eyeballs to look at a page than anything else does. AdSense/PPC by Yahoo both do a fine fine job at delivering traffic, and trying to force Social Media to do that is dumb.
See, social media is about real warm human relationships. Same deal with blogging. The goal is to build an army of like minded people, to create a place in someone’s mindshare, to have a small audience that will run through walls for you, that will carry the banner of your business.
ROI is this: the relationships you make from being online. It can happen in bursts. But, it only happens if you are authentic, if you put yourself into it. What’s the value of a contact, a friend? What’s the value of someone that trusts you enough to buy all of your stuff?
That’s what you’re getting. You’re getting friends and fans. Not mere consumers, not “leads” and not warm bodies. What you do with all of this stuff is entirely up to you. You will make mistakes. But if you make mistakes with a good heart, and a desire to connect, and a desire to put other people first, and help them, the world will forgive you.
What’s the value of a friend? That’s what you’re here to do. To connect with people, to help. To lend your expertise. And yes, the money will happen if you do the rest of this stuff.
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No one can argue that social media is about contacts, relationships, fans etc etc. But there’s also the old school concept of opportunity cost. If you spent a year on Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn “all in”, lent your expertise, helped people out, what would your business outcome be? Most importantly, how does that compare with banging phones, wearing nametag, passing out cards at Little League?
That’s the question!