A few days ago I officially made my ebook debut—a sound byte Twitter tip in a book sponsored by Best Buy and HP (download it here):
Twitter is about connecting with real humans. People before profits. Relationships before ROI.
My point was not that profits or ROI are unimportant, but that Twitter (and social media in general) is a place where you must place primary focus on your customers or prospective students…who happen to be real humans.
And since you’re busy building relationships, easy ROI metrics like clicks and conversion probably won’t give you a good indication of the success of your social media efforts. As Chris Brogan (@chrisBROGAN) and Julien Smith (@Julien) state in Trust Economies:
Marketing spend might start at awareness, but in the trust economy communities are king, and ROI stands for Return on Influence.
I don’t think traditional ROI should be the standard for success. On the whole, the power of social media doesn’t reside in building awareness, but in building trust.
Sure, you can use social networks as platforms to drive link traffic, but if that’s all you’re doing, your traditional ROI will be really, really low.
Nonetheless, because social networks allow you to establish trust, you have the opportunity to extend your company or school’s influence. To measure the actual extended return-on-investment for your social networking efforts, you have to look beyond the easy quantitative data to qualitative metrics that show how people are responding to your influence online.
I’ll defect to the expert Chris Brogan to show you how to formulate a qualitative listening plan, but the point is, if people trust your organization, they are more likely to continue to engage with you, and they’re more likely to tell their friends about you. Your goals may shift from “increase click-through by 10% next month” to “increase organic conversations about us by 10% next month.”
Plus, it’s my contention that when you begin a social media plan with the end measurement of influence in mind—you work harder at finding ways to build trust.
You @reply more on Twitter.
You respond to threads in your Facebook group.
You start conversations with your blog.
You connect with real humans.
You put people before profits and relationships before ROI.
-Andrew
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- CMOs: “Social Media is Better In-House”…DUH
- Considering Your Competition’s Use of Social Media
- Twitter Lists and Influence: Shut up, Relax, and Measure Quality
Tags: influence, Marketing, relationships, ROI, trust, Twitter
