For businesses that use profit margins and labor costs to drive social media policy, today’s breakfast offered plenty of food for thought. Return-on-investment (ROI) was the topic for today’s Social Media Club – Charlotte Breakfast featuring Argyle Social principals Adam Covati and Eric Boggs.  The two founders of the social media marketing software firm shared their experience with assessing the returns that can attributed to social media’s influence in a business.

As always, I tweeted out some of the presentation highlights (including the slide pictured here), speaker insights, and my own thoughts about ROI and its relationship to social media:

• Social Media Cost: The cost for company participation in social media efforts is largely employee time. 75% of businesses say they spend less than $4,000 on social media; however, this number may be much larger when labor costs are considered.
• Business Skepticism: Skepticism about the benefits of social media follows a long line of skepticism about new technologies: pay-per-click, email, mobile applications.
• Content is King: Twitter and Facebook can only share the content that the business creates. That content should be driving traffic back to the company website.
• Different Tools for Different Goals: For higher ROI, let the medium and the content drive company efforts. The goals of conversation, value push, marketing, and sentiment may be better served by different media.
• Analytics: Small businesses can use free, available tools (like Google Analytics) to measure sentiment online. Larger companies might seek out more robust software.
• Social Media’s Endgame: Social Media drives traffic to online content. Choose the company site over Facebook, Twitter, or other 3rd parties.
• Blogging Creates Opportunity: Blogging, when used correctly, gives voice and opportunity to share passion, to add value.