An online quipster poised the question: “How do you measure the return on investment (ROI) of social media marketing?”  He then answered his own question with “You don’t.”

Fortunately, that’s not exactly true.

As  businesses scramble to set up Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages, analysts are scrambling to discover how impactful their company’s SMM has been. For some, the answer is “we can’t measure this,” but others believe there are statistics that reflect their SMM’s effect.

As Aaron Uhrmacher, the guru of social media, recently said in an article on Mashable,   “Social media measurement is one of those topics about which everyone has an opinion, but nobody agrees on the solution.”  His suggestion – - as a beginning point – - is to simply decide on what to measure.

What’s Your Social Media Marketing Goal?

If your goal is to increase your reputation–get potential clients talking about you in a positive manner – -  then get out onto the social media sites and monitor what’s being said about you.

In a brief run-through searching Twitter, I found some very mean-spirited comments about a specific entrepreneur’s e-mail campaign. At another site, a customer was complaining that it took days for a company’s customer service department to contact her . . . leading her to wonder if  she was dealing with a real company or a scammer.

In both instances, a social media point of contact–shall we call it a czar?! -  could have reached out to customers via direct message or e-mail and turned a damaging situation into a win-win. After all,  social media is about “social” – - building relationships.

If your goal with your SMM is to measure traffic, then setting up a solid analytics program that tracks incoming links will tell you if your visitors are coming from Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Although Google Analyltics are excellent (and free), we also suggest Xinu, a free site that tells how your website is doing in terms of search engines, search engine optimization, social bookmarking, RSS, and other social indicators.

Measuring ROI on social media marketing isn’t a precise science; but what we know for sure is that businesses and entrepreneurs need to have a success metric in mind before jumping into the game.

My good friend, and fellow online entrepreneur, Lou Bortone (the OnlineVideoGuy) told me about a new service that is launching today at 11:00 am Pacific (1 Central, 2 Eastern).  The service, Prfessor, allows non-techie people to set up their own "university", and teach the things they know – - and of course generate passive income while doing so. Think about that – getting paid from here til the end of time to share your knowledge with other people.

There’s an excellent video on the Prfessor site right now that shows you the basics, with launch scheduled as noted above.

I don’t know about you, but there are MANY things I can teach and I can’t wait to sign up for my own account.  At this point, I don’t know what the charge will be, but I’m betting it’s going to be a monthly subscription. Lou told me he thought it was under $50, and if that’s the case, I’ll be first in line.

My "what I can teach" list right now includes:

1. Internet genealogy
2. Non-fiction book proposal writing
3. Non-fiction book writing
4. How to become a freelance writer
5. How to promote your book online
6. Basics of social media marketing

How about you?

This is the most excited I’ve been about a product launch in eons.  Prfessor is THE system for anyone who wants to teach, earn extra income or at-home income, and doesn’t want to mess around with all the technical stuff. 

Although getting your book on Amazon may seem like the Holy Grail of authordom, it’s really just the end of the writing stage and the first step of the marketing phase—an arena most authors shun with great dislike and/or disdain.

One of my recent clients (an entrepreneur selling a well-written how-to manual via the  Kindle Store), asked me for a few marketing ideas he could do on his own.  The easiest task, I told him (and one of the most effective) was getting several positive reviews for his Amazon Kindle book.  My suggestion was to send e-copies to colleagues and friends, asking them to give the book a run-through and then post a review.

Do your friends actually have to read the book to give it a review? Well, no.  But the plus of giving them a copy is:

1. They may catch some doofus mistake you made, saving you the embarrassment of a book buyer who revels in pointing out the dumb stuff they find in a review that will NEVER GO AWAY.
2. With a copy in hand, they can write a much more detailed review because they have all of the info at hand – not just the bits you tell them about
3. If your book is on a topic of interest to your friends, they’ll probably write a far more enthusiastic review because it’s something they actually care about.

Positive reviews – in my opinion – have accounted for dozens of my own book and article sales.  Think about it – if you’re unsure about buying a particular book, don’t YOU read the reviews?  I know I do.

Getting positive Amazon reviews is the least of your book marketing efforts – what else can you do? Stay tuned . . . and if you feel like commenting, I’d love to hear your Amazon book review technique suggestions.

Will E-Books Rule Them All?

Do you remember in Lord of the Rings how the Age of the Elves was ending as the Age of Man began? I think we’re seeing the same colossal change as the Publishing Empires of Old fade (so sorry, Elron), and the Era of Digital Media blossoms.

E-books have long been the step-child of the publishing world; tolerated to a degree, but looked down upon by those who wrote and published “real books”.  With the launch of Amazon’s Kindle 1, 2, and now DX (and of course, Sony and Plastic Logic), not only are “real books” available in digital format, but anyone who wants to write an e-book can knock one off in an afternoon, publish on Lulu, Kindle, or their own site and (in effect) toss a virtual rock through Barnes and Noble’s front window, along with a note declaring “just try to keep me out!”

So how can an author or entrepreneur benefit?

There has never been a time in the history of man (or elves) with such an information-hungry audience.  As infopreneur Eben Pagan notes in one of his vids, we have left the culture of manual labor behind and have moved into the era of “mind-work”.  And with that era comes the need for information—and lots of it.

For you authors reading this, that means more and more eyes on your work (and hopefully bucks in your pocket).

For entrepreneurs, the outlets for digital media provide you a) a legitimacy that comes with having your name on a published work; b) cash; and (perhaps the most important) c) being seen as an authority in your field. Why? Look at the “authority” figures in your own industry – - you listen to what they say, you read their blogs and newsletters, and buy their products, hoping to emulate their success.

Plus (and this is a bonus) – - when media folks search Google for an expert in a field and your name keeps coming up, who do you think they’re gonna call?

[note: Because I'm known in a particular little niche (Internet genealogy), I've been interviewed by the New York Times, Kiplinger's, Better Homes and Gardens, plus numerous websites).  Trust me . . . it PAYS to be seen as the industry expert.]

Action Steps

I loathe going to meetings and coming out without any action steps, so:

1.  Dust off the articles, special reports, or books launguishing on your computer

2.  Polish, edit, update

3.  Sell on your site, format for Kindle, and pop them up on Lulu.

4. Let everyone you know that you have valuable information for sale.

5.  Once your stuff is on Kindle, gets your pals to leave you a glowing review on your Amazon page.

6.  Wash, rinse, repeat