People often say, “Yes all of this social media may be great, but I don’t have the time and besides, how do I know if it will make me any money?”
I loved Erik Qualman’s recent blog post, where he says that when people ask him the ROI question, sometimes the appropriate response is “What’s the ROI of your phone?” For social media is a way of relating and responding to people, not a Brinks truck pulling up to your customers’ or clients’ pockets. But at the same time, that doesn’t mean you can’t make money using social media as one way of engaging your customers. Qualman has posted this slide show on his site that gives example after example of companies that have grown their revenue using what are essentially free tools.
But in the end, it’s not just jumping on Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn or the zillions of other social networks out there that is going to work anymore than when I worked in traditional media relations and people would say get me an article in the Toronto Star or Globe and Mail. That will solve it. Sure, it helped! But they still needed an ongoing communications/marketing strategy of how to reach their chosen audiences.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
Thanks for the kind words about the videos. If you read the book behind the videos (Socialnomics) I’d love your expert insight/thoughts.
Your point is spot on – you need a sustained communication strategy and a lot of social media is simple caring and that takes effort!!
Happy Holidays and thanks again for the Socialnomics support!!
Best, Erik Qualman
I like the idea of asking what’s the ROI on a phone. To truly assess the impact of social media, one needs a comparison. It’s just one of many communication tools, and the relative value will vary from channel-to-channel and audience-to-audience.
However, whenever a new media is taking off, those who had the foresight to invest in it in the early days received the first adopters advantage. Some of the early successes created amazing hype, and after Obama’s success with social media, the media is quite saturated. Still, it has its unique characteristics and value, which I believe can be quite powerful, but which are difficult to quantify.