I started a heck of a thread with a post on Twitter, blogs and communications. I just read another blog post from Scoble who talks about why he still does Twitter–he’s in a constant quest for the latest news. He’s right, you’ll get news first from Twitter. You get thought later in a blog. Magazines, on the other hand, need to have even more research and analysis to remain relevant. Newspapers have a problem. I think they have to become more local–and remember they’re still the best places for coupons. I know there are Web sites, but newspapers are “in your face.”
You’ll have to click the link above and read the comments. They are great. I have had little time the past several weeks to update so many different vehicles. And when I wanted to Tweet more, the service was down. Twitter is just going to have to get more reliable. The other problem with Twitter is it’s ephemeral. Old posts get lost. So don’t put thoughts there, just quick updates or news or conversation. Some people thought Twitter would replace blogs. No, it’s a different form of discourse for different stuff.
By the way, all this social media stuff–check out this social media blog. I’ve heard talk about ROI lately regarding advertising and reaching prospects. I think what I heard was relating it to “leads.” Leads are names of people who click a link. But people, leads don’t give return. Return means money–sales. ROI is that amount of money you earn on a money investment in something. Your boss (or you if you’re the boss) wants metrics these days (probably have an MBA with little or no experience in the sales trenches). Names on clicks or even the number of clicks are a metric. Return is what YOU do with that. As Jason says in his post I just linked to, today you still generate more sales through traditional means. Maybe that changes in the future. Who knows?
Or, come to the ISA Sales and Marketing Summit in Boston Sept. 10-11 and discuss with us.