Social Media ROI Hogwash

Rememeber this always: CASH is King.

There is one thing that is annoying to me about social media marketing these days: Everyone ย is an expert. Add that to the fact that seemingly everyone that needs to incorporate social media marketing into their business, has no idea why, and no idea what it’s all about. So you have people who can’t stop talking about how they are an expert, telling people who have no idea if they should be involved a whole pile of bullshit… that is annoying.

So business owners who are not idiots feel like social media marketing is unproven at best.

That takes us to Level two of the argument. The so-called social media experts, and there are a lot of them, have been attempting to speak in ways that business owners and executives can relate to. So here comes terms like: return on investment (ROI), an idea which clearly has a warm place in the heart of any business owner. So you hear it mentioned all the time by the social media experts. The trouble is they can never explain how to truly figure it out, they quickly point to their software with charts, sentiment ratios, and other funky terminology. As a business owner and a social media marketer, I care about cash. How is using social media to market my business putting more cash in my pocket? And when I do social media marketing for other businesses how can I show them it is worthwhile?

I don’t pretend to be able to tell you exactly how much it is making you, but I give you evidence, and build your Internet presence to show how we’re driving traffic to your site and inside your site to the pages that are where you make your sales.

When the businesses we promote get results like this without lifting a finger they know we are making them money, and I don’t have to go around using accounting terms out of context to make me feel better and real business people feel like I am a fake:

Birthday Wishes Jpeg

When an owner sees things like this happening, they start to believe. In other words you deliver, you don’t call yourself an expert and point to software. You bring in sales, you connect with a following, you make it obvious and undeniable that money is coming in from your efforts. That is ROI in social media. It is time to call a spade a spade, and it is time for experts to deliver. Business owners don’t want charts saying that since they started paying for social media marketing and management the posts associated to their brand name have a 23% higher positive percent to before. They want evidence that it is bringing in CASH.

Cash is king.


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31 responses to “Social Media ROI Hogwash”

  1. OfferedLocal Avatar

    Spiro, Agreed!

    The best test of social media working for a business is to start making offers and promotions. Give your followers a reason to keep following you. If you make offers but no one shows up (to put more money in your pocket) then you probably have the wrong followers or you got followers for the wrong reasons.

    Thanks,

    Ed Loessi
    CMO
    OfferedLocal
    http://www.offeredlocal.com
    http://www.twitter.com/offeredlocal

  2. SierraSez Avatar
    SierraSez

    Good post, Spiro. There are a lot of “experts”out there…but social media should simply work hand-in-hand with any other aspect of your marketing plan.

    What businesses need to be cognizant of is taking the time to define the “return” in ROI, not obsess over it. For you, cash, by filling seats and selling food, is your focus on return. I would warn readers don’t let social media “experts” be the ones to create your definition of return because they claim to know social media better. You know best your business goals and what your measurement of success is.

    Cash does rank high for most small businesses but social media can be helpful with expansion, reach and social responsibility (fundraising, global awareness, etc)

    Cheers,
    Christine
    @SierraSez

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      Christine!

      So glad you stopped by my humble blog, I don’t feel like an expert but I seem to meet a lot of them. It seems like a lot of people are trying to make it out to seem more complicated than it is.

      Thanks for your sane two cents.

      -Spiro

  3. Hank's Avatar

    fantastic article, like really good. i am so glad that i never say i’m an “expert” and when i do it *eyes roll* another one. this has given some info to use when talking to my clients. thanks, g.

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      Thanks man, re-reading this I think I was venting a little bit… but I have had enough of the ‘Social Media Evangelists’ !

  4. Nathan Smoyer Avatar

    great post. I know of a few local competitors in the field of social media guro ninja evangelical new media lead generation expert marketing and ALL of the ones I put in that category do exactly what you describe. I’ve gone to their seminars and listened to the preaching of best practices that starts with “first you need to get a facebook book page and start advertising.” <–NO JOKE EITHER!

    IMO there's a lot of bullhockey and malarky out there. I turn down clients on a regular basis and refuse to pursue their dollars for the sake of making quick dollars on people's ignorance unlike my competition. There are some businesses that will see a true greater value in gaining repeat or new customers through social media. A client with an email list of 10 people and that has been open for business for 3 months is not likely to experience a return on their cash spent for a very long time.

    This post struck a nerve with me because I find myself saying the same thing. Thank you kind sir for getting my blood pressure to rise and angry me with the amateurish practices of these ninjas. Have a great weekend :D.

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      Ha! Love that comment. It’s just the facts, and I am happy to share.

  5. Chris Gregoire Avatar

    This goes hand in hand with something I wrote about last week, having to do with goals. As a company, you’d better know what your goal is of going onto Facebook. If it’s some convoluted statement about ROI or some other bs, slap whoever is selling you on this idea with a brick and move on.

    http://davisad.blogspot.com/2011/04/what-is-your-company-goal-with-facebook.html

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      Chris thanks for the read and comment, I will check out what you have
      written.

  6. Polly Jones Avatar

    Great post! Glad to hear someone else say it. This is the same way I treat SM for small businesses. They don’t care about the “social ROI” they care about the dollars. So when an online campaign brings in NEW business, and money to their pocket, that is what they call success. RT’s Mt’s, re-posts, likes, shares, and all the rest do them no good (and they don’t care about them) if they don’t bring home the bacon. I care about what my clients care about – cash, because if I’m not making them money online through SM, what good am I too them? Reporting a bunch of numbers that to them do not correlate to sales does not get me paid.

    1. Spirocks Avatar

      Sometimes you just have to call people on it.

  7. david s. Avatar
    david s.

    Great stuff. Saw interesting research results re: media effectiveness for retailers who are not among the Top 40 in the U.S. The study was done by ForeSee, a Michigan-based analytics firm and released in February of this year. Top of the communication effectiveness list? “Traditional” media. At the bottom of the heap? Social Media.

    Here’s the report: http://bit.ly/jwetCg

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      As a small business owner who uses Social media, email marketing, website
      optimization and SEO to promote my businesses I disagree that Social Media
      is the bottom of the heap. I do think that some of the metrics that are
      popular for measuring its success are bullshit and not worthy of any
      fanfare. But it works, and it works for far less $ than traditional media.

      Spiro Pappadopoulos
      GuestFeed – Spoke Social
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  8. Keithm Avatar
    Keithm

    Nice what is your feeling on social marketing for companies that focus on B to B?

  9.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    I am a new follower of yours on Twitter…and this article makes me think I am a GENIUS for doing so! I am a Retail Consultant, finding a specialization in Social Media that appeals to small Retailers, and am immediately printing this blog post for reference. I completely agree with you when you say you have to call a spade a spade! I’s so difficult to explain to retailers that there is a WHOLE OTHER marketing world out there that can COMPLIMENT and ENHANCE their existing marketing…and lead to cash in the till. Thanks Spiro…you really do ROCK!

    1. Spiro Pappadopoulos Avatar

      Catty,

      feel free to contact me anytime, I love talking about this stuff.

      Spiro Pappadopoulos
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      1.  Avatar
        Anonymous

        Thanks Spiro!
        Will do…
        Sincerely,

        Cathy Burrell
        cell: 604-541-8426
        cathy@cavernretailconsulting.com
        http://www.CavernRetailConsulting.com

  10.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    I am a new follower of yours on Twitter…and this article makes me think I am a GENIUS for doing so! I am a Retail Consultant, finding a specialization in Social Media that appeals to small Retailers, and am immediately printing this blog post for reference. I completely agree with you when you say you have to call a spade a spade! I’s so difficult to explain to retailers that there is a WHOLE OTHER marketing world out there that can COMPLIMENT and ENHANCE their existing marketing…and lead to cash in the till. Thanks Spiro…you really do ROCK!

  11.  Avatar
    Anonymous

    I am a new follower of yours on Twitter…and this article makes me think I am a GENIUS for doing so! I am a Retail Consultant, finding a specialization in Social Media that appeals to small Retailers, and am immediately printing this blog post for reference. I completely agree with you when you say you have to call a spade a spade! I’s so difficult to explain to retailers that there is a WHOLE OTHER marketing world out there that can COMPLIMENT and ENHANCE their existing marketing…and lead to cash in the till. Thanks Spiro…you really do ROCK!