Return on Investment.
The catalyst of success. The denominator of power. The fascinating and elusive factor that would make or break our fragile careers.
But the game has changed, has it not? The rules are different now. Somehow, the world of structure and order that gave us so much security while we dreamed of it in our dorms and studio apartments has been over-run by a society that relies on word-of-blog advertising and social networks for news. People don't care as much about the ads we spend millions to create as they do about what their favorite blogger has to say. They figure that if Mashup! isn't talking about it, it must be passe'.
So we changed out game. We built our Facebook pages and started our Twitters and launched our blogs and it was all exciting and fun and new and wonderful.
But then...silently and ruthlessly, a thought crept into our minds. We ignored it for a moment, tried not think about it for another. But we could not shut out the voice, the nagging fear in our minds. In a world where communication is the agent of marketing, where we build and cultivate fluid, non-contractual relationships, how will we track our ROI? How will we know if this, this juggernaut of change, is working? Where are the numbers? How do you put Twitter into a spreadsheet?
Quiet your worried minds and silence your irrational, community college-driven fears. I believe that we are looking at the problem from the wrong angle. It is not investment that we are gaining a return on. Much of the new media is free. The investment made is time. And time, like furniture and telephones and carpeting, is not an item we expect an ROI figure from.
The calculable factor is relationship. We have to start finding our Return on Engagement. As we invest time into building relationships with our consumers and their networks, as we build our brand and create an atmosphere and an expectation around that brand, as we make it easy and productive for people to engage us, we begin to see profit, we begin to see a return.
Ask the right questions. Has my social media straetgy over the last six months grown my virtual networks? Has user-generated contribution risen since my latest addition? Has my brand awareness grown in the extended networks of my consumers?
Change your glasses, open the windows, and leave the halls of lower learning for the open fields of the New Social Market.
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