There is a clear correlation between the time and energy spent on a Social Network and the amount of return (ROI) you can generate from it.
In a recent Heckler’s Hangout Robert Caruso, founder of Bundlepost, mentioned some intriguing numbers confirming this statement. I was curious and chatted with him some more about this. Our Hangout was too interesting to chop into pieces so I just posted (almost) the whole 20 minutes above. Don’t worry though - I’ll give you the juicy bits below and in an Infographic.
Very soon after Robert and his team set out to start a Social Media agency they realized that they would actually be a software company and Bundlepost was born
Bundlepost logoBundle Post is the first automated social content management system for social media folks like us.  The powerful system automates the time consuming process of finding, organizing, managing and scheduling your social media content in a powerful social content management system.  Most importantly it lets you warehouse all of your social content in one place!
Bundlepost’s customers are individuals, Social Media agencies (50%) and major brands
Robert says:

“Social Media is like a Freeway - You have to have enough cars on the road every day. The cars are the (valuable, interesting) content and the audience is standing on the side of the road watching the cars go by. Some of the cars need to have your logo on them - meaning they are about you and feature your product.”

There is a formula that makes resources spent on Social Media make sense:

quality content leads to conversations

conversations build relationships

relationships translate into ROI

Bundlepost helps save time on the routine work of social media management and frees up time to spend on creating and nurturing relationships.

In marketing their product the Bundlepost team relies on digital media channels - their efforts are spent where they find the audience and not where they have the most fun. Analyzing the distribution of efforts and the number of sales the priorities become clear:

50% of the relationships are generated on Twitter - 50% of the sales come from these

40% are from Facebook (although some of these relationships started on Twitter and moved to Facebook)

10% of the relationships are from LinkedIn, Google+, Instagram and other social media platforms

Robert explains:

Most people don’t know these numbers. So people spend their time where they like. G+ is very cool, but how much have you actually made? If they are honest: none! Unless you are a marketer, marketing to marketers, Google+ is not where you should spend your time

Robert shocked me a little with this statement: “Engagement is not the goal of Social Media” but it made sense when he put it in perspective:

Content  is not the key, results are the key. Engagement is the method to the goal, it’s not the goal itself - ROI is the goal and people lose sight of that

I think for me one of the most important messages from our conversation is:

Only after you built the relationship can you ask for the sale

Provide selfless, relevant value in the form of quality content. Or in the form of sharing selfless, relevant content of others that is still relevant to your audience. Pretty soon you have relationships and earn the right to ask for the sale.

Provide value + respond =

earn the relationship

What about you? Where do you spend your time? Let me know

Infographic for blog post about quality content