A Strategy For Social Media ROI?

There has been lots of debate about the ROI from social media. As discussed previously the debate reflects old strategic thinking that says everything must be measured against an ROI. That old thinking reflects "legacy knowledge" and old management styles that have decided to stop learning.

As markets shift and new technology accelerates shifts old knowledge and management methods cannot produce the "holy grail" called results. Worst yet is that results in business are a reflection of past practices and sometimes the real results don't show up for months, years and even decades. Just consider the current global economics. Do you really think the "results" just happened or are they indicative of years of stinking thinking and market practices that have failed? Time reveals all things. Today time moves faster and subsequently so will the results of your thinking, your practices and your conversations.

What Is Your Strategy For Producing Results?

As we've said over and over results are driven by the quality of your system. A system is the collection of efforts applied by people, processes and technology. A system must have an aim that is supported by a strategy. A system has to be managed with knowledge otherwise it has no aim. The aim is not the result rather it is the intent.

When knowledge changes so must your system and your strategy. When the intent of the market changes everything changes. Managements job is the manage the system or change it with the aim of improving the system to better serve its purpose and intent.

The strategy for producing an ROI in today's marketplace is significantly influenced by your intent to serve the market. Intent is revealed and reflected by your communications, your relationships and your depth of knowledge of both. Intent is transparent as is the knowledge used to create and deliver on intents.

Using old knowledge and old methods reveals your intent to not change with the demand of the markets. Refusing to change is an intent to fail. The markets of conversations reveal this based on the experience the markets have with your system. Your employees know this, the market knows this and the need for management to understand this has never been so transparent.

Stop thinking about ROI and starting thinking about improving or replacing the system. To do so requires new thinking and the ability to apply new knowledge.

All this social stuff represents new knowledge which can be freely accessed from the conversations. To get it and use it you must be engaged but engaged with the intent to learn. If your strategy is simply to try to sell your old knowledge and methods with an old system whose aim is results you will fail. Why? Because results now come from a new system aimed at a different intent. Watch the video below.