ROI of Social Media: How to Improve the Return on Your Social Marketing Investment

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THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL MEDIA AND ROI

It's an understatement to say that social media is maturing rapidly. The core technology, the adoption by consumers around the world and the strategy of how it fits into an online business marketing effort are all progressing at break-neck speed.

These trends are forcing businesses and marketers to invest in and operate in a 7×24×365, “always-on” marketing and customer service function that can respond to influencers, consumers and individuals who are always tweeting, always posting and always checking-in to their social media presences.

Social media will continue to play an ever-increasing part in the lives of individuals and the Internet will continue to become a more and more indispensible part of our global culture. Whether they are B2B or consumer, large or small, local or global, marketers will need to make their own assessments of how the future will unfold and based on that assessment develop the social media strategies and tactics that they can manage, measure and profit from.

The results of these assessments will be a complex evolution of consumer behavior, technology, economics and business processes, many of which do not exist today. The emergence of “conversational marketing” will focus on the consumer, the conversation and the ability to listen and engage effectively.

Even as we write this book, billions of individuals and consumers will join the conversations. Social media will become a part of their lives and can no longer be ...