Thanks B. Appreciate the comment and thoughts.

GASP! I did not curse you out at the pause, I was too focused on what was coming next. The question keeps coming up of how to measure ROI in social media and you just answered it for sure. Sure we can say that it is a conversation and that we have to build relationships but I find it hard to build relationship with the a company as I have no idea to whom I am conversing with.

If companies do not tell me of new offerings how will I know that they have a new product? If I am on twitter or reading blogs and if a new product is not discussed then how will I know about it? We talk about going to where your customer hangs out and if I am chillin on twitter or FB then you have to alert me to something new or a sale or something as that is where I am.

I 100% agree with you and have had clients do this all along. I violated the “rules” I guess but I have not been fired for doing so.

Great thought provoking post. I love it!!!!

Jason loves to stir the pot! I can tell you that as a business-person (as opposed to a consultant or agency guy) that everything you said is true. It is, absolutely and without question, how I can either make more revenue or more profit (preferably both).
But I also think that companies who are focused on revenue and profit (e.g., ringing the cash register) BEFORE they have “joined the conversation” and “engaged their customers” are doomed to fail. In my business, I can be perfectly honest about something: I spend a lot of time on community-oriented activities without having a clear understanding of how it's going to make the cash register ring. I do it because I have faith that, by adding value to communities in good faith, it will position me effectively with the buying public. They're not even going to think about who to buy from; they're going to buy from me because they know me.

Should companies have infinite patience with community-for-community's-sake? No. But they need to have some – maybe a lot. It's my hypothesis that the companies who invest now in sowing strong relationships are going to do very well when it comes time to harvest them … even if they don't know today exactly when that harvest will come or what it will look like.

Thanks for sharing this insight Jason, I think now though companies are aware of the fact that they need to get into right conversations to engage with people, but they still want to make sales on the time spent on the talk.
The mentality behind this is an old one, it relates to up-selling things on inbound services for example when people call credit card companies to activate their cards they up-sell protection insurances.
All in all they think they should get a fantastic ROI on every minute spent with there customers.

Excellent article! For all the hype regarding the online community relationship, the bottom line is, and always has been, the same. Your target market does not want to be your friend, they want something from you. They want a product or a service, not a life affirming relationship. I do agree that there needs to be conversation, however the conversation needs to have a point on the order of “Here is what I can do for you based on what you are saying”.

My take: if you're using social media for business and you're not selling, all you have is a hobby. Balance promotion with relation and you have a winner.

Understandable, and I am glad you wrote the message that sure, like any marketing tactic there are going to be reasons why social media tactics don't work. Yet, social media can ultimately drive home a loyalty to a brand, product and service that can't be done by just hard selling. Social media has expanded the natural community to a more convenient space to further the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth. I think when our lives begin to slow down, we get to know our neighbors and only buy local then I can see that social media as a communication tool for any sort of information couldn't drive traffic, interest, loyalty and income. My two or three cents

Great post. Rings true for me at many levels.

Great post – I've often compared SM to traditional brand building exercises such as advertising, sponsorship etc. which are designed to raise awareness, build relationships and loyalty. All good marketing strategies however, involve two strands of communication – the call to action often integrated into the above (usually via a phone number), but more often in other environments (a promotion instore/newspaper ad informing of short term deals etc. but using a similar creative device) in order to create an integrated holistic campaign. It seems to me that the various strands of SM can be used in a similar ways – blogs & Facebook to build the relationship and communicate the brand values, Twitter & bookmarking sites to deal with the tactical, cash generating message. No-one was ever able to prove an exact ROI on advertising (the most expensive form of marketing) – it is measured via increased awareness/perception of desired attributes. If the sales go up, and nothing else has been initiated as part of the campaign then yes, you can put an ROI on it – but it's very rare for a company to advertise and not underpin that investment with other activity. So, ROI is put against the whole campaign, with both quantitative and qualitative research often used to assess the most successful bits. SM needs to be viewed as another part of the marketing mix, and evaluated as such.

great post man,thx..

Social media has expanded the natural community to a more convenient space to further the most powerful type of marketing – word of mouth.

it can go both ways. I started to see more and more business advertise their Facebook page instead of their domain name. It was not only big brands that were doing this, but smaller brands too. I still believe Social media should be just a part of overall marketing effort.

social media is way over-hyped

it can go both ways. I started to see more and more business advertise their Facebook page instead of their domain name. It was not only big brands that were doing this, but smaller brands too. I still believe Social media should be just a part of overall marketing effort.

It had been the life-style. Actually visiting Vegas, a person consider your own methods along with you.  http://chestnut-boots.yolasite.com

I completely and whole heartedly agree with you! I am a big fan of social media on a personal level and I’d like to continue to use and see how businesses can use it to their advantage. I’m guilty of “using a friend’s business” as a test subject, but it’s developed my belief that if they’re not on board or optimized for SEO (which I think will help the bottom line); then there really is no point to managing social media. It’s great to “connect” on a personal level, but as you said: “it won’t help the bottom line”. Developing the company blog, using the right keywords, and using the right CTAs is proving to be impossible when trying to “help a friend out”. Which also leads me to another belief: if the customer is happy w/ what you’re doing, leave well enough alone. Now I completely understand that belief is debatable because I would certainly debate myself, but for my friend, simply connecting is enough. Maybe one day I’ll convince them to get relevant content and simply correct title and meta tags so code is clean, so it’s all congruent but for now I’m working on different wavelengths with them! For them it simply boils down to not understanding the importance of their website and blog. Before I go off on another tangent, I’d love feedback if I wasn’t too general….:)