Maybe you’ve heard (or thought):

• Why spend all that time online? It’s just a waste of time.
• It’s something my kids are doing.
• My business is busy enough as it is, I can’t do that too.

But the reason we say things like that is because we don’t see the value in it. If you’re running an organization, you’re not sitting around twiddling your thumbs looking for something to do, or thinking “oh maybe I’ll play some games on Facebook”. Unlikely. If you invest your time in something, it should actually improve your business, right?

Well that’s the issue here. We need to make sure that we are investing and not just spending our time.

To do that, first we need to know why this is a viable path to take. So that will require some education, and there is plenty of it out there on the subject. Once we know where the value is, we need to plan. Without a plan, you are just spending and wasting your time. And lastly, we need to take some action, and invest some time consistently, in order to help your future community engage with your organization in ways you’ve never imagined.

Fortunately or unfortunately, social media isn’t just a temporary fad. It’s just another form of communication. In the same way humans have adapted to and continue to use things like telephones, cell phones, email, and the internet itself, we’ll adapt and continue to use newer ways to connect with one another and distribute information. No, we’re no longer sending smoke signals or writing on cave walls, so everything passes eventually, but we can’t expect that this will just go away sooner if we ignore it.

Rather than continuing on, let’s keep this post short and sweet. The video above, from the author of Socialnomics, is one of the best we’ve seen on ROI for social media. So invest a few short minutes and gather some facts.

Lisa Peterson is an entrepreneur, Director of Studio 6 Sense, Founder of Sozo Arts & SproutWords. She’s designed & developed branding & media campaigns for numerous fortune 500 companies, as well as design & marketing programs for Bestselling authors. She’s active in serving her community, driven to live with purpose & loves to collaborate with clients & others who do the same.