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My job is to care about the business case for social media. That\u2019s what I do for a living. Put social media in the perspective of a brand or company and do my best to illustrate how it can build a business.<\/p>\nMy job is to care about the business case for social media. That\u2019s what I do for a living. Put social media in the perspective of a brand or company and do my best to illustrate how it can build a business.<\/p>\n
But if I never manage to definitively prove some fancy formula for \u201csocial media ROI\u201d in a business context, I\u2019ll still be here. Why? Because there are personal rewards to participation here that go above and beyond awareness, or sales, or anything of the sort.<\/p>\n
I have met friends through whom I\u2019ve rediscovered the meanings of trust, faith, and loyalty.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve found a home for some of the personal battles I\u2019ve fought<\/a>, and solidarity through hearing the stories of others.<\/p>\n I have seen people raise money and awareness for causes that deserve more than we can ever collectively give them, but that might not otherwise stood a chance of getting seen.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve seen the weak find strength in the voices and actions of others<\/a>.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve laughed more richly and more genuinely than I have in a long, long time.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve walked into rooms and hugged people as if I\u2019ve known them for decades, thanks to the late night chats on Twitter or a string of discussion on a blog. And I\u2019ve shared drinks or dinner with many of those people and forged bonds of forever friendship that started on these \u201csilly\u201d social networks. We may have found one another on the web, but that\u2019s just the spark that lit the fire.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve reconnected with friends who I\u2019ve always regretted losing track of, and I\u2019ve been able to apologize for that in person. I\u2019ve seen people closest to me rediscover the love of their lives many years later and forge a future together because of a serendipitous click.<\/p>\n We used to be bound by geography and circumstance in order to encounter people. Now, our potential for connection \u2013 and our ability to do so regardless of where we are or where we go \u2013 is amplified many times over, and more fluid and unencumbered than it\u2019s ever been.<\/p>\n There are skeptics and naysayers all over. There are the \u201cyeah, but\u201ds of the world masquerading as pragmatists or realists when they\u2019ve really got a perspective or attitude problem of their own. There is always the other side of the coin. But I choose to focus my energy elsewhere, because I\u2019ve personally experienced how these relationships have enriched my life, my work, and my perspective on the world around me.<\/p>\n I will and do support the idea that quantifying social media\u2019s impact is important to justify continued investment as a business. But I can\u2019t believe nor understand how many companies can\u2019t also accept the fact that deeper and broader personal connections can net stronger business ties, too, whether or not you can capture the data proof points that bear that out. It\u2019s been that way since the dawn of time. We prosper in business through better connections, stronger relationships, deeper trust. We\u2019ve always known that. We\u2019ve rarely demanded to see the evidence until we got all up in arms about the fact that we were talking on this internet thing instead of over the golf course or a drink.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ve found all of these things in spades through Twitter, my blog, the blogs of others, Facebook. I\u2019ve found them in you, friends and readers and those that have provided so much information and insight for me to learn from. I\u2019ve made business deals, yes. Numbers of them. But I\u2019ve also exponentially enriched my life through the people I\u2019ve met, the ideas I\u2019ve discovered, the learning I\u2019ve done.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve found personal gold here on these crazy places on the web, simply because they give me potential. They give me personal inertia. They\u2019ve brought me the gifts of people and friendships that will last long beyond the wires that first connected us.<\/p>\n That\u2019s my personal social media ROI. What\u2019s yours? <\/p>\n Amber Naslund<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My job is to care about the business case for social media. That\u2019s what I do for a living. Put social media in the perspective of a brand or company and do my best to illustrate how it can build a business. But if I never manage to definitively prove some fancy formula for \u201csocial … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-ambernaslund"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1894"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1899,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1894\/revisions\/1899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}