Social Media Marketing Book

While a lot needs to be focused on the ROI (Return on Investment) in social media marketing, marketers and even senior level (C-Suite) team members might have a hard time wrapping their minds around how to measure that when it comes to engaging in social media.  That’s why looking at it more as the Return on Conversation can make it a little bit easier to comprehend and even likely a little more realistic in some cases where engaging in social media doesn’t end up in a “click to sale” situation.

Today’s chapter is “It’s the Return on Conversation” which is Chapter 4 in the book Social Media Marketing:  Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media.  This chapter dives into the issues that surround how to measure the conversation, what can you get back from engagement, and things happen when you start to engage without a forced expectation.  Today’s 3 high level tips in our 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days series are:

1. Monitoring the Conversation
2. Participate Without Expecting Anything
3. Join a Random Conversation

Full video transcript after the jump…

Chapter 4:  It’s the Return on Conversation Video Transcript

Hi I’m Li Evans, I’m author of Social Media Marketing:  Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media.  I’m back today with another tip in our45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days series that can be found on SMMarketingBook.com, which supports the book.  This series highlights 3 tips from each chapter for the next 45 days until the book launches which is on June 24th 2010.  Today’s chapter that we’re going to take a look at is chapter 4, and that’s “It’s the Return on Conversation”.  It is also the Return on Investment, but you really need to look at it as the Return on the Conversation that you are having in social media.

So the first tip that I have for you is about “Monitoring the Conversations“.    you need to monitor the conversations around your brand, around your services, your products.  Even the people withing your company.  You can do that with a number of different tools and it just depends on your budget.  There are free tools like Google Analytics, and there are enterprise level tools such as Alterian’s SM2 tool which use to be called Techrigy.

The second tip I have is for you to “Participate Without Expecting Anything“.  Participation without expectation allows you to be more open.  You’re not forcing something down somebody’s throat and you’re not really expecting anything to happen.  When you’re not expecting something to happen, that’s when it really does take off.  People can sense when you are being genuine and when you’re not really wanting something from them.  So when you are out in the social media communities, and you’re engaging with them don’t expect  them to come and buy your product, don’t expect them to click your link.  Don’t expect them to start talking about you because when you expect that it just doesn’t happen, it feels like it’s forced.

The third and final tip I have for you is to “Join a Random Conversation“.  Sure you may think that it’s not really all about you but if you are in a forum that’s all about your industry and you’ve joined a random conversation about something that is very peripheral, you might soon find yourself talking about what you are an expert in or what you have knowledge in.  People will respect what you have to say and your knowledge and the fact that you are sharing that with them.

So those are your three tips for chapter 4, It’s the Return on the Conversation, in the book Social Media Marketing:  Strategies for Engaging in Facebook, Twitter & Other Social Media.   You can this video and all the other videos in the 45 Social Media Insights Over 45 Days on SMMarketingBook.com.  I’ll be back tomorrow with another set of tips for you.

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