It’s Too Soon to Measure the ROI of Social Media

Dragging your feet on use of this powerful business tool? Your competition salutes you.

I got an unsolicited e-mail offering a webinar to teach me about how to measure, and the importance of measuring, the ROI of social media. Total. Joke. And a bad one at that. Social media, business social media, is running wild—with or without you. Your customers and prospective customers are posting on Facebook whether you have the wherewithal to have presence there or not.

And I am not just talking to companies—I am talking to you, the individual.

Consider this: Of all the grassroots revolutions that have occurred on social media, none of them was started by companies or governments. They were all started by people—people who were excited, people who were afraid, people who were pissed, and people who wanted change and spoke up. They spoke over CEOs, media, newspapers, government, lobbyists, and politicians.

Here’s what you should measure instead: LRI, otherwise known as Lost Revenue (and Goodwill and Customer Loyalty) of Idiots.

While Macy’s and most other department stores are/were measuring ROI, Zappos is cleaning their clock, delivering value, connecting with and responding to customers one on one, and building a billion-dollar empire in less time than it took Macy’s to expand to a second store 100 years ago.

Webinars on the subject of ROI of social media are likely run by the same people who thought Amazon.com wouldn’t make it. If Jeff Bezos measured the ROI at Amazon in the first five years, he would have quit. He accomplished domination while Barnes & Noble was measuring ROI, and Borders was going broke.

Amazon now has total market dominance based on leader-ship, vision, and technological excellence. Same with Apple. Microsoft used to laugh at them, now their employees all have iPads and iPods at home.

Measure? No, invest resources in social media without measuring. Now. It’s way too soon to measure. Here’s a major point of understanding: If they had measured the ROI of TV, or the computer, or the automobile, or the telephone, or the Internet after 5 years, NOBODY would have gotten involved, and we’d be in a technological bog—sinking. Wake up and smell the opportunity!

People guarding nickels have no idea of the power or the value of business social media, much less social media. They have no idea of the lost opportunity, or the lost revenue. They have no idea of the perception and participation of customers.

My bet is people who measure the ROI of social media have never Tweeted. Wanna take that bet?

I define these people as the ones who still have a small rubber circle in the middle of their keyboard—completely out of touch with what’s new, and trying to prevent the unstoppable force of progress, and customers.

Wanna know who else “measured” financial return? Blockbuster measured online movie services. Blackberry measured smartphones. Microsoft measured music players. Bank of America didn’t measure or understand the power of Facebook. Execs there were too busy measuring debit-card revenue. Their billion-dollar loss paled in comparison to their complete loss of goodwill. I doubt they will recover in a decade.

There’s one company that you should want to take its time, measure nickels, rely on lawyers, and stick the big toe in the water before getting involved—thatwould be your biggest competitor.

Here’s an easy plan to get rolling in a week or two:

1. Gather the e-mail addresses of everyone in your world.

2. Create a first-class business page on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, well-tagged with keywords.

3. Start a YouTube channel by in-viting your customers to share their thoughts on why they bought from you.

4. Map out a strategy, and goals for engagement, for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

5. Assign someone to monitor, post, and respond to all who engage.

6. Create six value-based messages, two each for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

7. Shoot 2–3 value-based (something your customers could use) videos and post them on YouTube.

8. Invite all of your customers to join you by sending examples of your value messages. I recommend one campaign per media for four weeks—but have links to all in each e-mail.

9. Post something every day on Facebook. Tweet something everyday. Link with 2–5 people everyday. Post one video a week.

10. If you really want to create some buzz, convert your contacts to Ace of Sales (www.aceofsales.com)—and send e-mails that differentiate yourself from the competition.

Start there. Start now. But start.

Return to Ingram's May 2012

Jeffrey Gitomer is author of The Little Red Book of Selling and The Little Red Book of Sales Answers.
P     | 704.333.1112
E     | salesman@gitomer.com