Comments on: The Mirage of Social Media Marketing

By: Why Social Media? Because…Reasons to Do Social Media | Engage the Blog

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:49:39 +0000

[...] Bug-a-Lug (",)] [inspiration: The Mirage of Social Media by @Zacharycohen] In case you'd like to [...]

By: ZAC

ZAC — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 01:16:47 +0000

Andrew you nailed it, the reason to engage social media, and people and businesses should, is so that they can learn the ropes, make the mistakes, understand the protocols and powers of it, so that when those metrics do evolve, they are primed to capitalize on them!
thanks for coming by and for the comment. It is so appreciated my friend

By: Andrew Hanelly

Andrew Hanelly — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:26:58 +0000

Interesting thoughts as always from @Zacharycohen – The Mirage of Social Media Marketing http://bit.ly/b6oJ3m

By: andrew

andrew — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:10:16 +0000

You’re right about the hemming and hawing. It seems a lot of times when asked about social media ROI people tend to mention a specific instance (i.e. this person found me through Twitter and ended up buying a car!) or are very abstract (i.e. more people know about us!) But there doesn’t seem to be a refined way to describe the middle ground.

I think the best way to look at it (for now) is that it is an opportunity cost, and it’s about market share.

In terms of opportunity cost: We’re at the beginning of a sea change (as you say, social media is still fresh), and we’re all pretty sure the media landscape has been altered forever. What is the opportunity cost of sitting out? Can we afford to not have an established presence if this social media stuff goes in the direction we think it will?

And for market share: Sure, maybe we don’t have the ROI science refined, but how do we feel knowing our competitors have more of a following or a bigger footprint in the space we know our audience is hanging out in?

Can we sleep at night knowing that if the levee breaks our competitor has a ship and we’ve got a surfboard?

By: Zacharycohen

Zacharycohen — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:18:13 +0000

Chasing the Social Media Mirage http://bit.ly/b6oJ3m

By: ZAC

ZAC — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:10:42 +0000

haha! i like that! my new pitch!

By: Lara Dickson

Lara Dickson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:08:42 +0000

Good points. Social ROI is a hard sell from any angle. For the restaurant industry, it can probably (maybe only) be summed up as: ROI = AIS (Asses In Seats).

By: ZAC

ZAC — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:07:35 +0000

Fiona good point. It is trackable and that is all the difference and one of the great powers of social media. But right now what is trackable is just kind of silly. You can track lead generation and conversions, but that is pretty thin compared to how people perceive a brand’s twitter account and how that relates to sales 5 months later…which is how most people behave right?

By: Fiona Bosticky

Fiona Bosticky — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:30:10 +0000

I think it is possible to track Social Media ROI in general, but not really in specifics at this point. Once you really engage in Social Media, you begin to see which clients are coming to you through this channel. Of course, the ROI for Social Media tends to be long term, as it seems to be cumulative. .-= Fiona Bosticky´s last blog ..Motivate Me – 6 part blog series: Part 2 Loral Langemeier =-.

By: Sol Tzvi

Sol Tzvi — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 04:08:21 +0000

http://www.zacharyadamcohen.com http://bit.ly/aSL5rU | via genieo.com