One of my Facebook followers, Gerrit Van Deventer, just asked me how to track ROI in Social Media. The problem with social media is that all the tracking tools out there are based on traffic and clicks. which you might say is “old school” style accounting think.

Business people like to see numbers they can plug into formulas to analyze performance. And that works well for a lot of things. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work for things like social media because if you just want to play a numbers game, you have to treat social media like cold calling. The more calls you make, the more sales you’ll make.

However, I’m not a proponent of cold calling because I find that I get lots more business based on developing relationships with people who send me business and I can send business in return. Or with people who find me to be a valuable resource they can “resell.”

If you just want to play a numbers game, social media probably isn’t for you. I’ve found a lot of Internet Marketers do play a numbers game with social media. The more links they get, the more traffic they get. But that game has already begun to fade because the social media sites have caught on and are working diligently to stop those practices.

Social media is good for two things and two things only. First, establishing yourself as an expert in your field by answering questions on various social media sites, creating wikis and Squidoo lenses with lots of helpful information on them, commenting on other people’s blogs and social media sites, and posting articles on article directories and blogging.

Or, for developing ACTIVE relationships with people to get referrals or create a fan base who actively buy from you because they like and trust you. That you do by actively participating in communitites, forums and blogs, creating forums on your social media sites, encouraging people to ask you for help and giving it freely, commenting on blogs, and inviting people to actively participate in your blog and forums.

Here’s a helpful blog post on social media and ROI that my wife, the principal and website designer at LyricalBiz, sent me.

Bob McClain or WordsmithBob, has been a website copywriter in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, since 2000. He has focused on developing new, more effective approaches to web writing, web content, web copywriting and Search Engine Optimization. Starting with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Creative Writing from Metro State University in St. Paul, McClain has worked diligently to end the use of "corp-speak" and "technospeak" online. His approach is to “humanize” the Web, using real information to guide people to buy rather than turning websites into advertisements that people can easily ignore. McClain is also the creator of Cheap SEO Website Marketing, a website devoted to helping people with the best solutions to DIY SEO at an affordable cost with tips and software reviews. More at Cheap SEO Website Marketing

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Originally posted 2009-06-29 12:59:35. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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