There’s an awful lot of talk these days about social media and how it should be embraced by businesses. One of the key issues often raised is the return on investment, or ROI.

The obsession with ROI has a lot to do with the need to measure what companies are getting from their social media efforts. There’s a feeling that many companies won’t implement social media until they can accurately measure ROI.

There are a couple of problems with this approach.

The first issue is social media is in its infancy. This means the services being used to launch social media programs and the tools used to measure campaigns are still being developed. To demand, there be definitive metrics at this stage is game is unrealistic.

The second issue is ROI can be defined differently for different companies.

While some companies are looking for higher sales, others may want to use social media to enhance their brands, establish a stronger online presence, attract more traffic, compete with rivals, or connect with customers, employees, supplier or investors. How you measure these different goals is obviously different and, sometimes, difficult.

At this stage in the game, the obsession with social media ROI is unhealthy because it could deter companies from experimenting with social media, which is exactly what they need to be doing right now as the tools and services evolve.

While not to suggest companies spend on social media with little interest in what they are getting out of it, the focus on ROI shouldn’t be first and foremost. In time, ROI will be a lot easier but, for now, forget about ROI, and focus on getting into the social media game.

More: Tom Smith has a post on Mashable looking at why many companies haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon, including the fact that “metrics are new”.

Technorati Tags: ROI, social media

After spending most of the day at PodCamp Toronto yesterday (along with about 500 or so other people), here are some of the key things that I learned:

1. The stature that Robert Scoble enjoyed a few years ago when blogging was hitting the mainstream is akin to what Chris Brogan is now enjoying as one of the leading players in social media. Brogan’s session yesterday, “Heresy, Hipocrisy, and Sin” was a tour de force, and the number of people looking for a short chat afterwards was truly impressive.

2. As much as many of us are sitting close to the social media “camp fire” and enthusiastic about blogging, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc., we’re in the minority right now. There are many people (and companies) whose knowledge of what’s happening on the Web is surprisingly modest. Some of the questions asked during the sessions were things that many of us take for granted.

The thing that struck me is while these people and companies will eventually learn about the leading social media tools and services, they’ll still need insight and expertise on how to use and implement them, which is great news for people like myself who are focused on offering this kind of service.

3. Many people attending social media and Web conferences are particularly interested in learning about the cool tools and, as important, real-life examples of these tools are being used in interesting ways. It’s one thing to talk the talk but quite another to show social media in action.

4. There is enormous enthusiasm among people marketing, public relations, content and communication sectors about social media. The challenge, however, is getting companies to actually pay to have social media tools and strategies implemented. At PodCamp, the suppliers way outnumbered the buyers.

5. As much we’re all into social media, it’s still early days. There’s still a lot of educating, learning and hand-holding to happen before social media goes mainstream. One of the key hurdles will be showing customers the return on investment (ROI) on their social media spending. As a result, expect measurement and analytics to be one of the hottest markets.

6. There may be no such thing as a free lunch but the fact PodCamp was free showed that people like the idea of not paying and, more important, there’s a huge appetite for social media knowledge.

All in all, it was a really good day. PodCamp was well organized, the Wi-Fi was decent, and most of the programming from first-rate.

Technorati Tags: chris brogan, podcamp

As the two-day PodCamp bonanza kicks off in Toronto today, it’s interesting to see how much of the schedule is occupied by sessions about video and social media.

This begs the question: whither the podcast?

While there are a lot of people who love to create and consume podcasts, podcasts do not seem have much of a presence within the social landscape. When I talk to clients about social media tools and platforms, podcasts never come into the conversation. No one has requested that podcasts be part of their social media strategic focus.

To me, podcasts are akin to the AM band, while video is the FM band; podcasts are the VCR, while video is the DVD player.

While I don’t expect podcasts and podcasting to disappear any time soon, it’s only a matter of time before they are swamped by video-casts as video gets easier to film, edit, produce and distribute. We live in a world dominated by television and video, which is why online video is resonating with so many consumers, content makers and advertisers.

Podcasts, meanwhile, seemed destined to become a niche service – perhaps as something that plays in the background when you’re working and can’t focus on a video, or while you’re driving.

So, what do you think? Are podcasts on the slippery slope?

Technorati Tags: podcamp, podcasts, social media, video

As the digital landscape becomes increasingly noisy, busy and, arguably, all-consuming, it strikes me there’s a growing need for digital prioritization.

By “prioritization”, I mean there is a need for a service that can determine which conversations, Tweets, Facebook messages, blog posts and e-mails are the most important based on specific needs, interests and circumstances.

This service would sift through everything, and determine which ones are the most important and, as a result, need to be consumed now, and those that can be consumed later.

For example, you could configure your e-mail setting to divide your in-box into three sections: respond immediately; should be reviewed today, and not a priority. The same goes for your Twitter stream: posts that should be check out ASAP, those that are somewhat interesting, and those (e.g. I’m craving a coffee) that can be ignored or checked out much later.

Given how busy people are becoming and how important it can be to know what you should be looking at sooner rather than later, this might even be a service that people would be willing to pay for.

More: A company that I forgot to mention when talking about digital prioritization is AideRSS, which offers a service that determines what blog posts within your RSS reader are the most urgent or important.

Technorati Tags: e-mail, facebook, twitter