You Proved Social Media ROI. Yes, You.

Like Minds turned over £5,800. The marketing budget was £0. On Tuesday 8th September, the site was created. On Wednesday 9th, it was marketing purely through social media. The Google Analytics snapshot below shows the traffic:

Who attended the event? I personally knew not even a quarter of the attendees. Through our social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and both the official blog and this blog, we had 188 registered attendees, and 561 online viewers.

We were even featured in the Express & Echo and the Western Morning News – but again, only through the efforts of other social media practitioners, whom we had engaged with through social media.

Ignore the fact that this conference generated buzz and rode on the back of the social media fad, the point is that probably 90% of the 188 attendees, 10 speakers, 561 online viewers, and undetermined number of hashtag followers were marketed, generated, and connected to solely through social media (except for a handful of students who we invited to come, via an email.)

Hey, even if it was only 50%, what an astounding case study. And again, let’s remove the fact that it was about social media – because a good deal of people in that room were not existing social media practitioners, nor were they existing Twitter users, which was where the majority of the marketing was carried out. This means, and I know it because many have told me it was the case, that our social media engagement translated into the spreading of offline word of mouth through the brand advocates that we created (and BTW, that’s a secret to the success right there.)

As I tweeted – frequently – in response to those asking for ROI – it was all around them if they just had the eyes to see it.

So let me say it again: if you turned up, you proved the ROI.

And if you need more help with understanding ROI, check out Olivier Blanchard‘s Social Media ROI.

The Bigger Issue

I have to tell you right now that you can be a master Social Media ROI guru and have every answer for every measurement qustion, but unless you know how to

1. develop a strategy, integrate it, manage it and measure it, and,
2. how to connect with and motivate your target audience to action,

then you will achieve nothing.

Social Media suffers from the same signal-to-noise issue in the regular marketing space: in other words, if you think the magazine rack is full of noise, then you don’t want to go near a Facebook or a Twitter feed. There is content from all angles, and it doesn’t matter how much you know about ROI, unless you know about people, and how social media must be used as an enabler for connecting with them, then you are probably just another horrid, soulless PR agency waiting to die.

This new form of media requires engagement that motivates people to act, and you are constantly up against a wall of noise that is flushing out your message every minute. When you get that message to your target person, it must fulfil its purpose. Therefore:

The successful social media practitioner is not a master of ROI, but a master of people.

That’s the bigger issue. And that’s why so many are dodging it – because they are awful with people.

I find it funny that everyone is amazed by the spreadability of Like Minds (many are calling it a ‘movement’ already), but few have bothered to ask how we did it.

If I were wanting to integrate social media into my marketing mix, that’s the question I’d be desperate to ask. Just a thought.