I just read St. Louis Small Business Monthly (May 2012)—I know I am a little behind on my reading—and Jeffery Gitomer’s article, “Measuring the ROI of Social Media? There’s a Laugh and a Joke,” touched upon some of the thoughts I have about measuring the ROI (Return on Investment) of social media. One of the things, and this ties into an earlier post regarding the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Awards Dinner recently in Overland Park, KS, is the passion that every business owner brings to a successful enterprise. That passion lies in knowing what your objective is, and that objective should not be (alone) to necessarily make money. Measuring the wrong ROI is as bad as not measuring anything at all. Stay passionate with what you believe in, figure out how to make your product or service better, and deliver it. And as I like to say, “Be an unashamed self-promoter.”
Jeffery Gitomer’s article did end with one more or less interesting, and not often seen, truism from the legal perspective. I quote verbatim: “No. 10.5. Listen to your lawyer only if he or she tells you what you can do.”