Social Media is great but where is the return on investment? The point here, is that we are actually asking the wrong question. Social Media is not a platform, but a tactic which is about relationship building, branding and being where people are looking.
This is exactly the type of message that drives me nuts. You can’t approach a proper business person and say that it’s wrong to expect a return on investment from an activity. There must be a return, or you go out of business.
Business exists to make a profit. Non profits still make profits, they just spend it all on what they’re working on and don’t leave any in the bank. There must be a return on what you do, otherwise eventually your money will run out and you’ll have nothing left.
A Social Media strategy has a cost, just like anything else. If you’re an entrepreneur who spends 2 hours a day tweeting, then you’ve spent 2 x Your Hourly Rate… if that’s $50/hour then in one month you spend $2000 on tweeting. If that makes you $2001 then you’ve made a profit, otherwise you’ve broke even or made a loss. Simple.
“It’s about building relationships”.
Sure – but why? How? I have enough trouble maintaining relationships with my few oldest friends around the world, how can I hope for a pizza brand to create a relationship with me? It’s not about building relationships, it’s about building mailing lists. This crap wouldn’t be so hard to swallow if the pushers told it like it is. You give me permission to try and sell you my stuff now and again and I’ll attempt to amuse you in return with some widget, game or connection. A modern take on have-a-free-gift-in-exchange-for-receiving-my-mail-order-catalogue marketing.
Far better these endless seminars and agencies would be if they told people how to monetise their social media activity, rather than blatantly advertising, as the above, that they don’t know how. If I’m going to give money away and expect no return then I write cheques for Great Ormond Street, otherwise, my dollar’s gotta work for me.
End of Rant.
