Funny that nobody does an ROI on corporate lawn mowing, business cards, new carpet, new signage, etc…

It's a fact that some things must be done, regardless of how trackable the results are. Fortunately, social media is infinitely measurable. However, a business must first decide, “Do we wish to engage in conversations with our customers & stakeholders? Are we willing to try new ways of communicating and hearing from the public?”

In an empirical world, where we want to know about Return on Investment, it’s important to know what efforts are worth the most to a company. Even as organizations become aware that they should take advantage of social media, the question that rushes in behind that awareness is, “How will I know anything is happening?”

How? We’ll tell you how…by sending a weekly report of blog traffic, podcast downloads, social networking group hits. Virtually every metric can be drilled down to reveal valuable information that can then be passed through your organization, to the appropriate contacts, for more targeted conversations with customers, partners and prospects that have real meaning.

Social networking should be part of a business model, part of the marketing, sales, and customer relations. But since it’s customer-centric, many firms balk at it.

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An interesting analogy to my professional life these days came to mind this weekend while helping my 95-year-old father build his compost pile. Composting is what I do for a living. Fertlizer is that with which I compete.

See, fertilizer is convenient. Everybody uses it. It's readily available, it comes in tidy bags, and makes things grow… for awhile. But after many applications, you have to add more and more for the same result. After that, there's little, if any, organic matter in the soil. And, the run off has polluted the rivers, lakes, and streams. Fertilizer, like traditional advertising and establishment PR, is a one-way street. It doesn't give back to the soil. There's no organic dialogue.

Compost is like social media. It's time-consuming. Messy. It works to an unpredictable timetable. It is a whole lot more interested in a small amount of the very best result than in a ton of stuff that achieves nothing, or worse! To compost is to accept the natural order of things. You can't force it or shout it to life. It has to want to participate and it has to be nourished.

But the end result is something real and rich and lasting. It's authentic. And it is transparent in the sense that there isn't anything in there you don't know about and can't see for yourself or that won't hold up to analysis.

Are we in the age of fertilizer? Are dead monologues inevitable? Maybe. But I see it trending the other way.

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