What is your social media pH?

What's the pH of your social media?

Social media return on investment is notoriously difficult to quantify as I have referenced here and here. Part of the difficulty in achieving that quantification is that it’s something that affects the entire business ecosystem rather than directly influencing any one part of it.

As a child, I kept tropical fish. Well, to absolutely honest, my dad took care of them and I helped from time to time! But I did feel that they were my pets. Anybody who keeps tropical fish knows that you have to manage the acidity of the water or your fish die.

It occurred to me during a conversation with a colleague last week: that’s exactly how social media operates. Social media is an element of the business ecosystem that can either make transactions more or less likely to flourish, but it’s nearly impossible to say with certainty that this activity has led directly to that sale.

A skeptical CEO is always going to have a problem with that if he or she does not acknowledge the type of investment being made or enters into a social media implementation with unrealistic expectations.

I suppose I could have compared it to global warming, too, but that’s a whole other kettle of fish….

Tagged as: CEO, pH, return on investment, ROI, skeptical CEO, social media strategy, tropical fish