Yesterday I saw someone post this question to a group and it got me thinking. I would bet there are few companies that are 100% satisfied with their social media ROI. I think there are a few reasons for this. Some people look at social media as a fad and so they are not going to give it their full attention if any at all. In the webinar we put on yesterday, we referenced these people as dinosaurs. They are not really interested in change.
There is another group of people who sign up for all the platforms and have profiles, and think this is done and complete. These people tend to sniff around, but get easily distracted and pulled to the next shinny thing instead of sticking with one or two platforms.
Then there are the people who tend to bury their heads in the sand similar to an ostrich and do nothing. So as you can see there are a lot of people that are not getting ROI out of Social Media. Here is my theory on getting Social Media ROI.
Social media is a wonderful thing, but only as a small tool that is part of a bigger strategic plan. If you only set up a twitter account and rarely tweet, or have a small following and give it up in a few weeks your social media efforts will fail. Social media is part of a business development, marketing and sales strategy that is like the air, water and food for a human. If you deny your company of any of these things it will shrivel up and die. Can you live without eating peas? Of course you can. So to can a business succeed without the social media tool. Will your health be more rounded if you eat your peas? You bet it will! The same is true for your business. Adding a well rounded strategy in the areas of sales, marketing and business development creates a healthy company.
If you would like to see how social media ties in to the bigger picture of marketing and aligns with sales, you should keep watching for our next webinar. ROI is tied to growth and profitability, this webinar will cover some of those things.
We may schedule another webinar in the next week or two. If we get a good response from yesterdays webinar or if you post a comment below stating you’d like to learn more about our Sales and Marketing Alignment Webinar, then we will get things scheduled.
Great thoughts. I agree social media is here to stay and is an extremely important part of business in today’s world. It is difficult to keep up with though, especially for a private practitioner such as myself. My daughter has just started working for me after graduation, and one of her jobs is….. you guessed it! A social media butterfly she will become!
Great thoughts. I agree social media is here to stay and is an extremely important part of business in today’s world. It is difficult to keep up with though, especially for a private practitioner such as myself. My daughter has just started working for me after graduation, and one of her jobs is….. you guessed it! A social media butterfly she will become!
Tina, thanks for your thoughts. Social media is here to stay. One thing that people must understand is that marketing of any sort can be highly expensive. Social media and blogging is the same, but the return on the investment in either hiring a professional to wake the path with you or committing the time to continually learn social media is one of the best investments you can make in marketing.
Even small businesses can make this work with commitment. If you read any of the other articles recently posted you would have noticed that Brandwise has tripled our revenues from last year. This is partly due to social media growing out reach and helping us become thought leaders in our industry. Honestly though we had to apply a whole new sales strategy to really leverage this and get those great results.
You to could do this is you applied the same techniques. One thing I want you to be weary of though is abdicating this task to just anyone because you know it has to be done. If you want this off your plate and pass it on to anyone else, but do not have a strategy in place focused on what you are looking to get out of your social media efforts, you may be better not doing anything. Take a look at our Facebook site. This is an area where we drop the ball on social media. I know you have to be there, but like you I run a small shop and do not have the man power to engage with my followers to the level I would like and I am sure they would like.
If this is the case for you as well, you may want to look into mastering one tool. For Brandwise I am focused on LinkedIn and Twitter. This is where our prospects hang out. Most CEOs rarely use facebook for business engagement. This may change in the future, but for now it is lower on the priority list. You to need to define where your audience is and exactly who they are so you are using the tools they use. You then need to engage them on this tool. Best of luck and I hope these ideas help you and your social butterfly.
Tina, thanks for your thoughts. Social media is here to stay. One thing that people must understand is that marketing of any sort can be highly expensive. Social media and blogging is the same, but the return on the investment in either hiring a professional to wake the path with you or committing the time to continually learn social media is one of the best investments you can make in marketing.
Even small businesses can make this work with commitment. If you read any of the other articles recently posted you would have noticed that Brandwise has tripled our revenues from last year. This is partly due to social media growing out reach and helping us become thought leaders in our industry. Honestly though we had to apply a whole new sales strategy to really leverage this and get those great results.
You to could do this is you applied the same techniques. One thing I want you to be weary of though is abdicating this task to just anyone because you know it has to be done. If you want this off your plate and pass it on to anyone else, but do not have a strategy in place focused on what you are looking to get out of your social media efforts, you may be better not doing anything. Take a look at our Facebook site. This is an area where we drop the ball on social media. I know you have to be there, but like you I run a small shop and do not have the man power to engage with my followers to the level I would like and I am sure they would like.
If this is the case for you as well, you may want to look into mastering one tool. For Brandwise I am focused on LinkedIn and Twitter. This is where our prospects hang out. Most CEOs rarely use facebook for business engagement. This may change in the future, but for now it is lower on the priority list. You to need to define where your audience is and exactly who they are so you are using the tools they use. You then need to engage them on this tool. Best of luck and I hope these ideas help you and your social butterfly.