Joobili on BBC – Social Media ROI?

admin — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 06:29:15 +0000

Is Social Media a waste of time or an powerful networking tool? I don’t think anyone really knows the answer to this question yet. When I put my MBA hat on I start spitting out words like ‘ROI’ and I feel the urge to divide Twitter-hours by estimated-promotion-value to arrive at some fancy effectiveness ratio. There are all kinds of Twitter and Facebook tools claiming to make a science out of Social Media. But honestly I’m okay with the ambiguity. I don’t expect Social Media to have the direct cause and effect relationship we’ve come to expect with other forms of online advertising. I believe that if you are out there interacting and genuinely engaging with the community then good things will happen…but it will never be easy to measure.

I still don’t know if Twitter is an effective use of my time, but I do know we have Twitter to thank for Joobili being featured on the BBC this weekend. BBC presenter Carmen Roberts was doing some research for her upcoming segment on the best travel websites. She posted a tweet and Darren Cronin from Travel Rants responded by recommending Joobili. I happened to meet Daren at a travel conference and we’ve exchanged tweets a few times over the past year. He has no financial motivation for promoting Joobili, it’s was just a case of Daren being a helpful guy. To make a long story short, the conversation was picked up on my Twitter search and before I knew it I was talking with Carmen directly and Joobili was featured on the BBC. The point is that on the one hand it would have never happened without social media and on the other hand I could never replicate this “success” or measure its exact cause. Herein lies the contradiction of social media that people find so frustrating. For me, I just accept it for what it is and enjoy the “ROI”…whatever that means!

Click on the link below to view our BBC debut. Joobili appears near the 2:15 mark on this video.

Joobili Blog » ROI

Joobili on BBC – Social Media ROI?