Jul
28
2010
When is your social media going to start making you money?
Author: Stuart R. CrawfordWhat a concept, is your social media generating revenue for your business? Directly or indirectly? Are you making a return on your social media efforts either a return on the investment or a return on the opportunity. We are in business to serve the community and to get paid for providing these services, correct? Enough of the fluff. Is your social media activities generating leads, prospects and interest from those who will buy your products and services.
When did this “group hug” thing start to over take good business decisions with social media? Many of my colleagues in traditional marketing may never say “Go ahead and send out your postcard campaign and share information on what someone else is doing”. So why is this acceptable behaviour in social media?
When did we lose our focus around what are business is truly here for? Was is Napster? Was it software piracy? Was it this Freemium mindset? Was it illegally downloading movies? Is it this lifestyle or behaviours that have swung our society into this mindset about not promoting our organizations or offering our products for sale.
Sure, you know what…believing others before the corporate message has been around for a long time. It is called “word of mouth” and referrals from colleagues is nothing new, we have been doing it long before Facebook or even computers were on every desk. But, some folks out there are telling business that social media is not for promoting your business or attempting to reach new markets.
Hey, I even drank that kool-aid until I met with my banker and he told me…great stuff Stuart but how are you going to pay your mortgage? We don’t accept your goodwill here? That was all I need to hear!
Your business is in business to serve the community and to get paid accordingly for these services you provide.
BTW, I am not talking about a free ticket to SPAM but we need to make sure our messages are around service, education and then “YOUR CALL TO ACTION”.
I highly recommend we focus on serving our community and also focus on the bottom line of our business. Understand real marketing metrics and not some “social currency” that is truly worthless in the real business community.
You are in business to serve and get paid for the services you provide.
