It’s not about the money, even when it’s about the money
Facebook and Twitter have their money on their minds these days. Ditto news outlets such as Newsday and The New York Times. Should your organization’s social media campaign follow suit?
Before you answer that, I want you to think about the person who cuts your hair. Anyone who’s ever had a truly egregious haircut can tell you how important it is to find someone you trust to handle your hair. Now imagine walking into your regular barber shop or hair salon — a place you’ve trusted for years. Your regular hair person walks up to you, but instead of smiling and saying hi, they shout “SHAMPOO HALF OFF WITH NEXT CUT!!!”
Are you going to go through with that haircut? I don’t think so.
As our understanding of social media marketing techniques matures, so will the pressure to produce results. Some companies will be satisfied with soft-metrics, such as engagement. Other companies are going to want to see cash on the table. Deciding which approach is correct for your organization is a more nuanced discussion, but no matter what form the pressure takes, I want you to remember your hair person. Because if you’re doing your job right, you are that important to someone. At least some of your customers look to you as a resource, a partner — even a friend. And the more they care about you and your company, the more upset they’ll be if you panic under pressure and start giving them the hard sell.
Yes, you’re in business to make money. Your customers aren’t dumb. They know that. They’re OK with that. What they’re not OK with is being treated like walking dollar signs. Facebook might be able to get away with that — for now — but you can’t. Finding your campaign’s ROI is going to become more important this year, but be careful not to let the search for a better return ruin the aspects of social media marketing that make it work in the first place.
How can companies increase their social media ROI without alienating customers? What’s the best way to balance sales with service? Anyone have a really good customer service failure story?
Image credit, DivaNir4a 
via istock
Posted by Jim Mitchem on January 18th, 2010 at 9:14 am
Nice post. I think quality engagement in social starts with the product/service and a corporate culture dedicated to customers. A lot of people are consumed with measuring ROI in SM because, well, they feel like they must put SM into the Marketing budget. But it’s really more like a hybrid of Marketing and PR – which makes it a new category. Great products sell themselves. SM only helps get the word out.
Posted by Brent on January 18th, 2010 at 11:54 am
This is interesting. Upon reading via SmartBrief the teaser headline alone (“Your Turn: Can Companies Take Their Social Media ROI Concerns Too Far?”), my answer was “Yes, clearly, they can.” Then, I thought, the answer depends on how we define ROI and on how quickly we ought to expect the ultimate return.
Companies make monetary investments expecting a monetary return on them. In their minds, ROI is therefore money. But money is the ultimate ROI, and we invest much more than money in social media. Not the least of these is time. And social media yields much in the way of returns. Not the least of these is relationships that later may very well lead to a monetary return on the social media investment.
So, are companies companies taking their social media ROI concerns a bit too far? Well, yes, when they expect the ultimate ROI immediately and then quit social media, thus yanking the foundation out from underneath the many other valuable forms of ROI they might have encountered along the way. To their own detriment, plenty of companies willfully ignore the full spectrum of social media ROI.
Posted by Esteban Kolsky wonders Is Customer Service Really the New Marketing? « Fredzimny's Blog on January 18th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
[...] It’s not about the money, even when it’s about the money (smartblogs.com) [...]
Posted by Promotional Products on January 18th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I’ve only seen one instance of a company actually turn people off big time through social media thus far. they were the hounding type, that never had much to offer, but used social media to become bigger than they really were. So as they were promising all of these results, they really could offer none of them to the level promised. I think that this will eventually end up being common place, as more money is invested by companies into people who work social media for a living.
Posted by BizCoachTim on January 18th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Excellent thoughts! Of course, you need to show ROI on Social Media. But that is not just in sales; it’s also in customer retention and company perception. It could also be measured in savings on advertising costs and customer service costs. It really takes us back to the basics of doing business: We buy from people that we know, like & trust. Social Media gives us tools to establish that in a global market. To be successful in this arena, we need to study Claude C. Hopkins and Dale Carnegie.