Social Media ROI

The subject of ROI is a hot one when social media hits the boardroom table.  I can’t help but laugh to myself when a potential client asks me what type of ROI they can expect from their social media program–especially when the client is a referral that originated from Twitter or Facebook or someone who reads this blog.  I have to say, Erik Qualman has done it again with his Social Media ROI video on YouTube.  He’ll have a million hits inside of a month, no problem.  Thank you, Erik.  This is eye-opening.  Even for me.

What is the cost of social media?

“What is the co$t of doing nothing?”

“Do you really want to take that risk?

Genesis

I was on the phone with a good friend the other day, talking
about social media and what bothers us most about Twitter. Don’t judge. Isn’t this what you talk with your friends about?

We both had our own unique set of opinions on the
subject. I made an observation,
which turned into a 15-minute rant that my friend labeled, “The Genesis of
Social Media”. The premise of this
was the comparison between today’s “social media expert” with the early “search
engine optimization expert”.
Back in the day, people tried to get their web sites to rank at the top
of Google for words such as, “the”, “ketchup” and “business”. The rationale was, “If I can just get
my web site to rank at the top of Google, I will have the traffic benefit of
millions of daily searches on these keywords.” “If enough visitors click on my link, I will have sales-it’s
just a numbers game.” Of course,
today this is as close to spam as you can get. Completely irrelevant, stupid and pointless all in one! Hence why Google prioritizes relevance
above most other ranking criteria.

That’s why when I see a “social media expert” on Twitter
with 25,371 followers and after careful review, this person is clearly an
idiot, it irks me. It burns me up
inside. I know for a fact that
these “experts” do not have a clue who is following them. It is obvious that they simply ran
several Twitter scams/tools/tricks to attract a large irrelevant following, who
they, in turn blast with countless pre-scheduled tweets selling whatever they
possibly can—it’s a numbers game. Sad
thing is, it probably works, which only encourages this ludicrous behavior. Who
are you following? Do you know
them? Who’s following you? Do
you know them?

When I say, “know”, I mean, do you read their tweets? Are they relevant to you? If not, why don’t you unfollow them? Reduce the noise pollution in your Twitter
feed and I guarantee you’ll enjoy the service a lot more.

TwitterIn – Twitter on your LinkedIn Profile

Here’s a video I saw come over Twitter today with Biz Stone of Twitter and Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn discussing the integration of Twitter features and updates on the popular business social network LinkedIn.

Unfortunately I’m feeling some bitterness about LinkedIn timeouts as I type this, as I’m sure they’re getting hit hard with visitors over the news.  So while I can’t yet implement this new functionality yet, I will share this video with you in the meantime.