Trust your gut more than your model

If I had to pick one thing we seem to have been discussing the most regarding the use of new media, and perhaps especially social media, for advertising it’s this fantastic concept of ROI. This pillar of sheer spreadsheet power, we can all go and hide behind, whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we experience and we - for some odd reason - decide not to trust our own experience and gut feel.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for measuring the things you do. But I just happen to think that the a lot of the models, we currently have are less than perfect at best - and plain wrong at worst. Yet, still a lot of people trust them. Why?

I got thinking about this when I read Rachel Happe’s stellar post on how measurement models work and come out short. A particular passage struck me as being very true in an ironic kind of way:

…with the financial meltdown there is a lot of conversation swirling around about whether there was enough good old fashioned experience and intuition governing the big financial firms or whether they had become subserviant to their models which, apparently, told them that lending to people who couldn’t pay them back was a good idea.

Bravo! And then she goes on to explain the real important point about how to measure the effectiveness of social media:

Business is about relationships and the better the relationships you have, the more stable and secure your business will be…but you may sacrifice growth because scaling good relationships is difficult.  The real value of social software is that it helps develop and maintain closer relationships with more people than you could without it.

Remember that and you’ll be ok. And get all the ROI in the world.

Vad NU! is a consultancy company owned by Mads Kristensen and specialized in helping clients take advantage of the business opportunities created by new media. Click to learn how I can help you and your company.