I had the pleasure of attending July’s sold out Social Media Club Seattle featuring the always entertaining Jason Falls. (Thanks to Eric Berto for getting me on the list.) Last time I ran into Jason was at SXSW and oddly enough I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing Jason speak. The topic of Jason’s presentation was tax law and SarbOx compliance.
I’m kidding of course. Instead Jason Falls decided to wage war against the social media purists.
I will make the qualifying statement that this is really my interpretation of Jason’s presentation so I’m probably getting some stuff wrong.
Move The Needle: Social Media For The Bottom Line
- Social Media is not a World of Happy Little Trees
- Social media by itself doesn’t ring the cash register.
- Your job is to move the needle.
I will now share with you a bunch of random tweetable talking points from Jason’s presentation:
Example: Eric Brown of Urbane Apartments started letting the tenants blog. They blogged about the neighborhood and he started renting more apartments.
- Social Media Purists don’t move the needle.
- Joining the conversation, talking with us not at us, engagement only takes the ball half way.
- Those are important things to do but you still have to move the needle.
- 81% of marketers plan to link annual revenues to social media.
- Traditional marketing (advertising, direct marketing, email marketing) still works, if it’s relevant.
- You can sell through social media.
- But remember soft metrics have merit. Branding and awareness has value. Traffic, comments, friends, etc, etc. They give you a metric of success but in and of themselves they don’t equate to ROI.
Most people who ask the ROI question are asking out of fear because they don’t understand what it does. Remember what it does do:
- Aides in branding and awareness
- Builds community
- Provides customer service opp
- Allows for research development collaboration
- Protects company’s reputation
- Offers direct sales opportunities
But despite all the huffing and puffing Jason still advocates to – Be a Purists:
- Be customer centric
- Participate
- Provide value
- Build relationships and trust.
How do we do that?
- Plan for Success
- Establish singular goals.
- Set measurable objectives goals to achieve
- Then tactics
Q&A
What’s the best tool for measuring the ROI of social media? Your brain. No one can measure your ROI if they don’t know the objectives and the strategy of your business.
What’s the biggest mistake people make in social media? Not doing anything with the community that they have built.
Bonus: Jason’s example of what will happen to social media gurus
Similar Posts:
- Walking the Razors Edge
- The Conflicting Definitions of Social Business
- A Collection of 2010 Social Media Predictions
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Tac, good Morning,
Thanks for the mention of Urbane Apartments, we appreciate it. And thanks to Jason for the Shout Out!
Posted by UrbaneWay | 28. Jul, 2010, 11:02 amJason rocks and this is indicative of that reason. I always like his no nonsense approach and as a PR/Marketer he is never quite what you expect. Thanks for the recap! I need to get up there to Seattle again soon and if so will see you and Eric soon!
Posted by Jim Turner | 28. Jul, 2010, 2:16 pmI consider myself a SM purist that gets, understands and knows how to report ROI to increase the bottom line. I love talking about SM like it is one big tree huggin' love fest – but it is about keeping the company in the black & making money. ROI ROI ROI – but you won't get there without strategy – a key that most SMM peeps don't do (or they just mimic the one they did for their radio advertisers).
cheers!
-jen
@JenHarris09
Posted by Jennifer Harris | 28. Jul, 2010, 2:44 pmThanks for the comment and thanks for creating the great example Jason was able to share. Good stuff.
Posted by tacanderson | 28. Jul, 2010, 2:56 pmYou got to love someone who isn't afraid to call “bull-shit.” Which he did in his best Louisville accent
If you want to come to Seattle, there's no better excuse than Gnomedex. http://gnomedex.com/
Posted by tacanderson | 28. Jul, 2010, 2:59 pmThe fact I'm learning Jen is most marketers don't have a social media strategy because they don't have a marketing strategy. They just do what everyone else does and rely on mediocre results to get them through. That doesn't cut it anymore.
<steps off soap box>
Thanks for the comment and keep hugging those trees
Posted by tacanderson | 28. Jul, 2010, 3:01 pm