A separate point that you make, and you’ve made this point before, is that investing in social media doesn’t have to be a CFO-level decision. Often enough, it doesn’t require that much of an investment to get started. Get started with enthusiasm and some good ol’ fashioned engagement, which can set the stage for a more substantial investment, such as hiring a community manager. No? My post, admittedly, makes it sound like there always needs a big financial outlay to start a social media initiative, and that, I believe, is not accurate at all!

I did suggest that people take the bullets & quantify them for what works for their organization. How can I do that?

As an evangelist I bought a new market to my last company (that’s growing exponentially). The initial cost was a few thousand a month for almost a year. Later as an employee my efforts extended to all of the customer segments. I did request a budget & present it. It was approved immediately along with the comment that it was equivalent to the cost of ONE mag ad. (And my opinion is that magazine ads are worthless if the customers don’t have any brand awareness – which was the job of my evangelists who were paid very little.) We quit spending on trad ad’s in the niche because the WOM & editorial was so strong. We were getting enough Feature Articles (which were free).

Or we could talk about the ROI of my forum moderators who worked for free because they LOVED the products so much! When I asked if they wanted to be paid they said ‘no’ because they didn’t want it to be work.

I also managed the affiliate marketing program (which doubled). I do know there is ROI. I believe in the return that a community mgr offers (otherwise I would give it a rest & go do something else).

We could switch it up & consider only spending on traditional marketing. But we need to realize the equation won’t include the gains of having brand awareness, word of mouth, happy customers, editorial comment, etc.