There is NO ROI on Social Media

Actually, it is possible to measure the Return On Investment (ROI) of a Social Media program, just like it is possible to measure the ROI on a phone line.

The problem is not the true ROI, but the fact that people can seldom measure their own ROI at present. Or, the ROI is something too vague – I have a 5 person office, we make $10,000 per month, per employee. Salaries are…

This is fine for a McDonalds (NYSE:MCD) but if you start taking sales people off of sales calls, the revenue lost in the time away from the phone or client has to be determined.

A Call Center Example

I run a call center. I have 100 agents and 100 phone lines. Each agent makes 5 calls an hour. The client pays $100 per call.

My client want to increase my calls from 500 calls an hour to 1000 calls an hour, so I have to increase my call center infrastructure.

To add 500 lines costs me $5000. To add PBX hardware costs $6000. These are both CAPEX and you have to be able to determine the ROI on your CAPEX spend at present. I have to hire 100 new agents at $2000 a month. I have to buy 100 new phones. I have to buy 100 new desks chairs, more garbage cans and so on. Do I need to expand my office space? Do I need to increase data center space? Heating and air conditioning, computers and all the costs associated with a new call center agent. Calculate until you know the cost of hiring a new call center agent and determine the cost per call.

That is exactly how we do it in call centers and an easier example than an office phone. A call center is a profit center (normally) and to make a profit we have to know what resources cost and what those resources, human and other, will bring in as revenue.

If you want to see the RIO on Social Media, hire someone to do that and nothing else. That employee cost is your investment.

Do the division

Determine what the result is from hiring that person in terms of revenue. That is your revenue. Do the division.

Again, that example is easier than determining the cost of one person doing Social Media from a home office. With a small business, adding extra work takes time away from something else, so the calculation is more difficult to determine, but it is possible.

The 5 person office making $10,000 per month, per employee is unwilling to hire a social media person. They have to decide who is going to do what, how much time will be taken away from existing clients, if this lost time will generate a loss in revenue and how much the social media program will generate in revenue.

Once you know all the numbers, do the division.

Are you afraid of wasting time on social media? Have a look at:

Overcome Social-Media Time Sink

Sweet Business Blogging Contest: SugarTone

A very cool contest for the busy professional who wants to create a strong online presence.
Do you write articles to share your expertise, establish credibility and gain online visibility? Do you blog for your business? Do you read business articles online?

If you do any of these you can win a few cool prizes for business professionals while gaining visibility to your website and business.

Bloggertone has teamed up with bizSugar to bring you the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest. This contest helps give your articles extra online visibility and rewards your social networking. The Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest is an opportunity for you to win prizes to help you promote your business.

  • Anyone can join the competition including current Bloggertoners and bizSugar members!
  • You’ll have lots of chances to win
  • Prizes valued at nearly $7000

2 Ways You Can Win

#1 Do you write business articles?

Submit a business article to Bloggertone Between Monday March 15th and Wednesday March 17th

All votes and comments for the articles will take place on bizSugar, the social bookmarking site for businesses.

#2 Do you like to read business articles?

You too can also win prizes simply by voting and commenting on the Sugartone articles posted on BizSugar.

Top 10 Titles & Top 10 Commenters

There are prizes for two different categories of winners:

  • Top 10 Titles – for the articles with the best titles (yepp, the best TITLE)
  • Top 10 Commenters – for the people who vote the most and provide the most insightful comments 

Prizes already lined up for busy professionals just like you.


There are prizes for both the Top 10 Titles and the Top 10 Commenters

1st Prize Winner – TOP 10 TITLES

Lead Page Machine

Lead Page Machine software runs on Windows XP, Vista and version 7.

(valued at 3500€ – this is about $5200).

Lead Page Machine is designed for the everyday non-technical small business to be able to create, launch andLead page machine manage their own lead pages (aka ‘name-squeeze pages’) to help you build a massive list of email subscribers.

Within 15 minutes or less you can create and launch multiple separate lead pages for each category of customer or client you want to attract.
Advanced ‘Clone’ facility lets you create duplicates of your most successful lead pages and launch an unlimited number of variations for different traffic sources (e.g. different lead pages for Google Adwords, print advertisements, article marketing, forums, etc.)

Lead Page Machine is the brainchild of Ed Rivis, author of The Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy and E-Mail Marketing Dynamite.

Click Millionaires

6 month membership (valued at $174)

This friendly social network is dedicated to helping solopreneurs and small business owners upgrade their online marketing efforts to make more money online.

  • “Ask Scott Fox”: Private online access to best-selling author Scott Fox
  • Click Millionaire Resource Bank with money-making strategy documents, skill-building articles, research reports, and publications.
  • 24/7 Success Coaching Forum personally moderated by Scott Fox
  • The e-Riches 2.0 MP3 Interview Library:
  • Click Millionaire resources to help online entrepreneurs worldwide to attract more customers.

Click Millionaires is Scott Fox’s private online marketing success coaching community.

5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success

1-Hour CD plus 33 page Report Reveals Exact Tactics You Can Easily Implement to Make Your Blog a Winner! (valued at $97)
When you study this program you will discover:

  • Why you need a blog for your business
  • 4 keys to creating compelling content
  • How to manage your blogging time
  • 3 sites to syndicate your blog content to drive more traffic
  • An essential tactic for attracting business with your blog

Denise Wakeman is an Online Marketing Advisor and Founder of The Blog Squad. She helps service professionals and small business owners leverage blogs for their business, as well as strategically use social media tools to boost online visibility to get more traffic, leads, customers and opportunities.

1st Prize Winner – TOP 10 COMMENTERS

Animoto

1 Year Subscription (valued at $249)

Animoto.com is a web application that creates MTV-style videos with the click of a button.

Users simply choose a song and images. Animoto then automatically generates a unique video for them. No two videos are ever the same.

Many of the post-production techniques that the founders used while working as producers for MTV, Comedy Central & ABC are used in Animoto’s patent-pending Cinematic Artificial Intelligence developed to think like an actual editor and director. The resulting video is produced in a widescreen format, containing the visual energy of a music video and the emotional impact of a movie trailer.

Animoto Productions is based in New York City with an office in San Francisco.

Traction Call With Gary Barnes

45 minute call with Traction Coach Gary Barnes (valued at $175)

Gary helps you to quickly get some “sand under your wheels” so you can move forward toward the life you want to live.

  • Stop running your business with “one foot on the gas and the other foot on the brake”
  • Live a life of vision and purpose, instead of exhausting yourself on the same old treadmill
  • Create more financial success and abundance (without working yourself into the ground)
  • Learn to market your business with integrity and authenticity
  • Have a lot more fun in your business and your life!

Gary Barnes is called The Traction Coach and his mission in life to help people find more creativity, passion, fulfillment, and, yes, wealth in their businesses.

Click Millionaires

6 month membership (valued at $174)

This friendly social network is dedicated to helping solopreneurs and small business owners upgrade their online marketing efforts to make more money online.

  • “Ask Scott Fox”: Private online access to best-selling author Scott Fox
  • Click Millionaire Resource Bank with money-making strategy documents, skill-building articles, research reports, and publications.
  • 24/7 Success Coaching Forum personally moderated by Scott Fox
  • The e-Riches 2.0 MP3 Interview Library:
  • Click Millionaire resources to help online entrepreneurs worldwide to attract more customers.

Click Millionaires is Scott Fox’s private online marketing success coaching community.

2nd – 5th Place Prizes for both TOP 10 TITLES & TOP 10 COMMENTERS

Start-Run-Grow

All you need to start, run, and grow your business included in one software package (valued at $49.95)

Over 45 essential business tools and services for 3 different phases of your business.

Start Your Business: From designing your logo to getting set up online, all the information you need to get up and running is just one click away.

Run Your Business: Improve your productivity and run your business more efficiently. Proven resources and tools help you stay on track and on budget.

Grow Your Business: Good marketing is essential to the health of your business. Bring in more customers, and more profits, to continually grow your business.

Start-Run-Grow runs on the Adobe Air platform so it’s both PC and Mac compatible and can be seamlessly updated as more tools are added.

These prices were kindly donated by Formspring.com

All Winners – TOP 10 TITLES & TOP 10 COMMENTERS

Books

All Top 10 Titles and Top 10 Commenters also get a mini library of 3 books/ebooks which will be chosen at random from this selection

Wordtracker Masterclass: Blogging For Business – 50 Steps to Building Traffic and Sales by Chris Garrett (5 books valued at $39)
Sociable by Shane Gibson & Stephan Jagger  (5 books valued at $25)
New Community Rules by Tamar Weinberg (5 books valued at $16.49)
Guest Posting by Chris Garrett (5 ebooks valued at $10)

Badges

There will be badges for all of the winners to display on their blogs or websites.

Here’s How It Works

Everything starts on Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST.  This is when you can:

  • Submit your articles on Bloggertone
  • Vote for them on bizSugar.

Article Submission Deadlines: Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST through Wednesday March 17th 4pm GMT / 9am EST

And to give some extra time to vote on all of the articles, the voting will continue on for 2 more days after the article submission deadline.

Article Voting Deadlines: Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST through Friday March 19th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST

Bloggertone’s standard guidelines outlined here.

Participate In The Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest

Don’t miss your chance to win these great prizes.  Anyone can enter the Sugartone Sweet Business Blogging Contest.  All current Bloggertoners and bizSugar members are invited to join in too!

Start writing your business articles now and be sure to craft an attention grabbing title. Then come back starting Monday March 15th.

SUBMIT YOUR ARTICLES

Click here between Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST and Wednesday March 17th 4pm GMT / 9am EST to submit your articles on Bloggertone.

VOTE ON THE ARTICLES

Click here between Monday March 15th at 4pm GMT / 9am EST and Friday March 19th 4pm GMT / 9am EST to go to bizSugar to vote on your articles.

Smallbizbee Contest to Win a HP iPAQ Glisten

February 20, 2010

Small Biz Bee has a great contest running until February 21, 2010 at 11:59pm PST. Yepp, you only have about a day from when this is posted to take your chance at winning a great HP iPAQ Glisten.
The HP iPAQ Glisten is a pretty cool looking 3G smartphone built for professionals who need to stay [...]

Read the full article →

FaceBook Statistics I Found Interesting

February 6, 2010

Company Figures

More than 350 million active users
50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
More than 35 million users update their status each day
More than 55 million status updates posted each day
More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news [...]

Read the full article →

Guest Posting

February 5, 2010

You might have heard of my friend and blogging consultant, Chris Garrett. He wrote the Problogger book with Darren Rowse as well as three books on programming (Chris Garrett Amazon page).
Chris has a new ebook out (Guest Posting: for Quality Links and Targeted Traffic) that tells you everything you need to know to get quality [...]

Read the full article →

Wear sunscreen

January 3, 2010

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 99
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen
would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved
by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more
reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this
advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty [...]

Read the full article →

Life Without The Internet

December 7, 2009

The idea of life without the internet is beyond my understanding.
I am not talking about living without the internet, of course we can all do that. I just can’t imagine how anyone can say that the internet connection that they need – for example, for a home business – is down for a week or [...]

Read the full article →

We Build Your Blog Contest

November 9, 2009

Andrew Rondeau just told me about his first contest ever on building my blogs.

Andrew has some great prizes available for bloggers.  There isn’t much more one can say when faced with such an easy choice.  Simply download Andrew’s FREE Report and either send out a Tweet, Digg the post, or leave a comment and you’re [...]

Read the full article →

How to Unsinstall Toshiba Flash Cards

November 6, 2009

I had a constant problem with Toshiba Flash Cards which interfered with pretty much everything. Windows would crash and I was forced to restart five times (at least) a day. I wanted to disable this ‘feature’ that I never even used.
The Control Panel provides no way to disable this (waste of resources and a constant [...]

Read the full article →

Have You Ever Been Lost In Tokyo? People Will Help You Find Your Way

October 13, 2009

I lived in Japan back in 1984 and 1985 while serving in the Marine Corps.  While there I took a ten day vacation around the main island and while in Tokyo I stayed in a rather nice hotel, unfortunately I forget the name. I was on vacation because my dad had come to visit me [...]

Read the full article →

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