Posts Tagged ‘business’
ROI.
How do you measure the ROI for a Tweet? How do you measure ROI for a video posted to YouTube? How do you measure ROI for a blog post?
The concept of ROI in modern public relations and corporate communications has evolved from the old standby of column inches earned * ad rate. The common belief now days is that retweets, blog comments, saves to Technorati etc… are all forms of currency.
ROI = $$$
Yes. A return on investment can only be measured in actual dollars. An increase in reach and “authority” are great. But how does the use of social media affect your or your clients’ bottom line?
Using social currency or “whuffie” or any other social metric is icing on the cake. But the cake needs to be a financial impact of the marketing or communications program. This applies to consumer goods just as much as it applies to enterprise software or discreet manufacturing. The units may change, but the affect to the bottom line is still what matters.
The concept of attributing a sale to the use of social media has become relatively easy. Marketing automation companies such as Marketo or even URL trackers such as bit.ly have made it much easier to follow a lead through the process of becoming a contact to becoming a customer.
The bottom line
As Olivier Blanchard over at The BrandBuilder reminds us “ROI is always financial.” Lots of people are beginning to pontificate on that stance. That it’s time to make some money on social media. There’s no reason for the consultants and gurus to be the onws making all the money. But nobody’s offering a solution.
Now it’s time for me to offer a solution. Instead, I am going to try and offer a mathematical problem, so bear with me.
The first item I’ll tackle is twittering a link to a product purchase form. First, let’s define some variables. X= my hourly rate, y = the amount of time in hours it took me to get to the point I can publish that tweet, z = the final cost of publishing a form. So:
(x * y) = z
Now, let’s continue. Lets try to determine the ROI of you publishing that tweet. More variables 
If you have a = number of people that fill out the form and b = the cost of each unit sold and c = the number of new customers we can use the answer from above to find the ROI of that tweet campaign.
(b * c) – z = ROI
I know this is beyond over simplifying. How do RTs or word of mouth affect this calculation? I’m hoping you all can help me out with that. Can somebody check my math?
Tags: business, consultant, formula, ROI, social media
I’m of the opinion that two ways to approach a major conference or tradeshow exists.
All. Or nothing.
During shows such as Web 2.0 Expo or CES or SXSW, so many people are clamoring for attention you either need to completely stand out from the crowd or risk getting passed over. So, if you’re planning on making an announcement at a show, make it worth your while. And, the reporters, analysts and bloggers you’re looking to have cover you.
Otherwise, spend your efforts building relationships and connections. Then, you can reach out to those relationships after the show and make an announcement then.
Tags: best practices, business, PR Tips, relationships
I think that 2009 will be the rise of the microbusiness. In today’s technology world, a win is no longer getting hired as an engineer at IBM or a marketer for Microsoft. Rather, it is finding clients as an independent “consultant” or working with a small startup that sees some element of success.
According to TechCrunch, more than 100,000 layoffs occurring in the tech sector at the end of 2008. And some of the largest numbers came from large enterprises. No longer is joining an established tech company a refuge for talented people who find themselves jobless as companies such as Sony, 3M and AT&T announcing heavy cuts.
The rise of the microbusiness
Using TechCrunch’s numbers, this is more than 100,000 people that are looking for a paycheck. Not necessarily a career, but a paycheck. They are taking freelance development and design gigs, working with staffing agencies or services such as Elance and building a modest client base.
But a decision will need to be made. Do they continue down the freelance path or seek the stability, opportunity and shelter of a full-time job? Freelancing is a contact sport these days and strong, talented and effective people will survive.
Unfortunately, most statistics aren’t current, but to give you some idea of what I’m talking about, here are some stats I was able to find:
- According to the US Census Bureau, 17,646,062 firms existed in 2002 that were classified as “nonemployers.” This meant that they were one-person businesses. This represented more than two-thirds of all businesses in the US at the time.
- By 2004, the number of nonemployer firms was 19,523,741.
- In 2004, of the 5,885,784 firms with paid employees, 3,821,128 had fewer than 10 employees.
- Sole proprietorships can be lucrative. According to BizStats, Internet publishing-Broadcasting businesseshad a net profit margin of nearly 65% in 2004.
- According to SCORE, there were 637,100 new businesses, 560,300 business closures and 28,322 bankruptcies in 2007.
These numbers show that we’re not afraid to venture to new, uncharted territory. When we take control of our own destinies, we are able to shape our lives to fit our ideal. What is your ideal?
Charting the path
This is where technology comes into play. Building a product is easier, cheaper and faster than ever. Social media and social networking are eliminating a lot of the overhead and burn that would consume an investment. Social networks, blogging and social advocacy are making it easy to create a network of passionate users.
All of these changes will make it easier for entrepreneurs to venture out as sole proprietors and make a product or a service that works. Sure, there will be some casualties. There always is. But, what makes microbusinesses different is the sef-reliance, bootstrapping mentality will come back into vogue. New avenues will be explored and new revenue streams will be identified.
What will you do to make your microbusiness succeed? How will you move your idea forward and make your microbusiness succeed?
Tags: business, entreprenuer, revenue, wacky idea
Technology is a wonderful tool for tackling fears. You can register for any anonymous email address you want and post anything you want, anywhere you want it.
But what does it take to really tackle a fear or move past an initial hesitation? In our highly-social, highly connected world, it’s difficult to imagine that we have real emotions that cause us to pause, and have to stare something in the face.
But in reality, a lot of our daily decisions are, at a minimim, affected by fear. The fear of failure, the fear of not being acceped. Even the fear of success.So, let’s look at fear from a sociological perspective and determine how to fix fear.
According to a paper in the Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, fear can be divided into two primary types: fear as an emotion and fear as a consequence of or motivation for social relations.
Fear as an emotion is often times based upon learned or natural behaviors that external forces have no bearing on. But what about the fear we can control? The social and business interactions.
Social fear
In my opinion, situational and social fear is normal. Being hesitant to enter a situation, sign a term sheet or hit submit means that your brain is firing as it should. But the challenge is what methods can you use to conquer the fear?
Information is power
I’ve found that being knowledgeable helps to alleviate any fear or intimidation I may have been feeling. Make sure you are factually accurate and can defend your points and perspective. Then you have nothing to worry about.
Trust your gut
Making any decision is difficult. If you’re educated on the circumstances, then trust your instincts. Usually the first reaction is proper and won’t lead you too far astray.
Talk about it
Find somebody you trust. Having one person that can serve as a confident but is honest enough to provide a reality check is an essential business tool.
These are just three tips that I use and help me make decisions and proceed in the face of fear.
So, what do you do to confront fear? Let me know.
Tags: business, Enterprise, Fear
Micro-sharing within a large enterprise. The concept mystifies me. If I were in charge of running a large corporation, or even a division within one, I would be so adamantly against the use of company funds, time and resources to develop something like was talked about recently on ReadWriteWeb.
The author (Laura Fitton, who is AWESOME), has an interview with the two guys that developed a service for Best Buy called Mix. Mix is an initiative to get Best Buy’s employees micro-sharing and micro-blogging. This is absurd.
We’re all a bunch of geeks. Those of us on Twitter have adopted this way of communicating as a means to fool ourselves into thinking we’re interacting with people. For “micro-sharing” to be thrust onto an army of retail workers seems like an inherently bad idea. Now, I’ll be even more self conscious when I check out, wondering what they’re going to post about the 6′8″ guy that just bought a Wii.
But I’ll Twitter that, so you’ll find out I guess.
The other issue I have with this is the productivity suck these services are. Think about this. I work in a small office. But in a given day, I will email, call, Skype, IM and maybe have a Twitter conversation with people in my company. Now, compound this by expecting me to participate in a micro-sharing thing makes me wonder when any actual “work” will get done.
Am I completely wrong?
Tags: business, Enterprise, SaaS, Twitter