What 1 Blog Post Taught Us About ROI

October 25, 2011 by Raul Colon

When we talk about ROI I am clearly talking about Return On Investment and similar to my friend Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder) author of Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Amazon Affiliate Link)) who has taught me plenty on this subject I have to say that it can only be measured in dollars.

I also agree with Olivier and many others that not every online effort should be measured with only the Return On Investment. I should focus a few more efforts into getting money back since most of them I mainly create them to inform and find individuals with common interests like in papaheroes.com (parenting blog focusing on online safety) and Veglatino.com (a blog on the latino vegetarian lifestyle and more).

Similar to my previous post on what makes a successful blog post the posts that have brought me the highest return on investment caught me completely by surprise (I did not plan them).

A few months ago @lucymfel my business partner at CIMA IT Solutions wrote a post on an Open Source Alternative towards Open Table. In 2009 few years ago we set up an online reservations system for our client Archipielago Restaurant. This online reservations system also served as an application to manage all restaurant reservations.

Given how many restaurants have websites and have no real call to action Archipielago Restaurant’s website does have a way to make sure visitors that are interested in visiting the restaurant can make a commitment of reserving a table.

Although open table does have many other advantages that I might leave for another post the open source solution we offer comes with a one time fee of configuring for you (if you need the help) which over time pays off for itself by keeping your hostess and staff focused on the restaurant critical tasks instead of taking reservations on the phone. The post was written to share an experience we had in hopes of maybe capturing the attention of other restaurant owners.

Our idea was to have a restaurant owners hire us to set up their website. What we ran into was something completely unexpected. Once we translated our corporate site from English to Spanish we did see how some posts got more traffic given the interest people had on a specific subject. We had a company from Mexico which owns over 2 dozen restaurants contact us on helping them improve their reservations process with the option to have their patrons also reserve online.

We did not sell a website but the consulting services on setting up an adequate process became a profitable opportunity.

Where Did We Make the Money?

We can calculate that it took Lucy and I a few hours to write the post, edit, and translate into Spanish. To give it a number being conservative I would say 2.5 hours. Without disclosing too much information the initial project has brought us thousands of dollars at a one-time fee to help them get up to speed and also a maintenance contract which will bring income monthly after the initial phase has ended.

Why was that Post so Successful?

Many restaurants struggle with huge overhead costs adding additional services like having online reservations does bring extra costs and if the cost is per transaction then that costs ends up being factored into the operations overhead. Being able to make one small investment and then having a fixed amount instead of a variable amount can mean a big difference.

For example if you use other online reservations systems they cost anywhere from $1- $2 dollars per reservation. So if you have 200 reservations in the month your monthly expense can be around $200-$400 dollars. Our blog post was created around the fact that this option was a more economical option where you pay one time and then since the application is open source no more fees are added unless you want to improve or customize the software (the decision is up to the Restaurant’s Management).

Our post was Informative

Different to most posts with a very aggressive sales pitch we tried to have the reader understand the value of what we had accomplished at our client Archipielago. Giving the reader and our website visitor the opportunity for him to decide that our experience might help him out is key when writing content where you want to connect with people.

Connecting Might get you the Sale

If you are always pushing sales pitches on your posts you are also pushing people away from your site.

I get multiple requests from PR (public release) professionals that all they want to do is push their client’s product or services into everyone’s readers and they forget about the connection part. When you are able to connect with your audience the sales process is more natural and less invasive. My advice towards creating posts that sale is to be helpful and informative and the rest will fall into place.

Have you had any blog posts that surprised you and ended up bringing income when you least expected it? What was your experience like?

If you are interested in learning more about Social Media ROI here is an affiliate link to @thebrandbuilder’s awesome book.

Book Review – Social Media ROI

April 4, 2011 by Raul Colon

I have been reading The Brandbuilder’s blog for quite some time. I find great and complete reports on how to approach social media from a business perspective. When I read that Olivier was releasing a book in March, I was counting the days for the release.

When the book was pre-released, I bought the e-book on the Kindle app for my Ipad. As I started reading the book foreward, I was surprised that Olivier had added myself and others thanking us for the support while he was writing the book. This is the first time my name goes in a future best-seller as was stated by my fellow tweep @treypennington.

I usually create a book review with very detailed points of interest. However, with this book there where so much I wanted to say that I decided to upload a video version of my thoughts.

The Book for Every Social Media Strategist

I can say I will be using this book as a guide as I have been using Olivier’s Blog for quite some time as one of my main sources when I want to get a point across with clients.

Olivier answers one of the most important questions many people and clients ask, “What do we do if someone says something negative about us online”. He also addresses many questions I have gotten from clients with a practical solution and detailed guidelines on the options you have.

I will be sharing pieces of the book with Olivier’s permission from my perspective since I see a lot of value and information that can be useful to all of us.

This is an awesome book so I recommend you download the e-book or go to your closest bookstore and get your copy. Then come back and tell me and @thebrandbuilder how it went.

The first 2 people to comment and state why you want a copy of this book will get a signed copy by Olivier Blanchard. You can also win a copy if you Re-tweet this post and use hashtag #SMROI with my username @rj_c. We will choose 1person randomly out of all the RT’s made of this book on this post by April 3, 2011.

What is your biggest question handling Social Media for your own efforts or clients? Why would this book interest you? Leave your comments win a Copy!

Here is Olivier’s Video on his Book Much More refined and Better Dressed.

3 People I Have Shared Great Online Experiences With

March 5, 2011 by Raul Colon

Many people have given me the same piece of useful advice again and again stating the point that in life you have very few true friends. Throughout my life I have interacted with many people in various environments the military, various corporations, small businesses, and geographical locations. I have friends from many nationalities and religions in general I have friends from various walks of life.

I appreciate the diversity of people I consider my friends and although I have many friends when I look at the ratio of People I know to the people I consider friends I can clearly see there are more people I have met and shared experiences with over the people I consider friends.

Many years ago I read Chasing Daylight a book which changed my life for many reasons. To give you a preview of one of the many things I learned from Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed My Life (amazon affiliate link) Gene O’Kelly (RIP) had a very unique structure in which he organized his close contacts which I have depicted it in the following image:

tiers-of-contacts 3 People I Have Shared Great Online Experiences With

I thought of the first layer but from the perspective of 3 People I Have Shared Great Online Experiences With but I have not in person yet. Thinking of this 3 people I found the following things I have in common with all 3:

I have never met them in person.
I interact with them on various occasions a week.
I admire the creativity and writing abilities.
All 3 have their feet on the solid ground.
I amazed on how they take complex problems and simplify them.
They are all very Passionate of what they write about!

Here I are 3 People I Have Shared Great Online Experiences With but I am still to meet in person (in no particular order):

Rick Lipsett | @ricklipsett

http://ricklipsett.com

Rick is from my hometown of Ponce. He is one of the few digital artists who can make a switch to Graphic Designer providing great quality work. He is also one of the few business savvy extremely creative people I know. Rick delivers what clients need and gives them a little bit more. Although I have not met him in person he has helped me greatly with a few clients and was the creator of my logos for @cimapr and this blog.

Olivier Blanchard | @thebrandbuilder|

http://thebrandbuilder.wordpress.com

Olivier originally from France where part of my mom’s ancestors came from is also an ex service member of France’s Military forces as I was at one time a service member for the U.S. Military. I would call him the authority on measuring social media efforts and Return On Investment. I started reading his book Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (amazon affiliate link) in which I found the great surprise of being mentioned in the acknowledgments area with a few other great folks which I interact with online. Olivier has a unique way of creating a solution for complex problems. Learn more about Olivier and go visit his blog which is full with great resources. Don’t miss out on being the first to read Social Media ROI.

Michael Castro | @MichaelDCC

http://poder5.blogspot.com/

Michael is a teacher like many important people in the last three circles like my uncle, @lucymfel, and a few others. I consider him a teacher with new ideas teaching others outside of his physical classroom on his blog and via other online channels.

He is excellent at voicing his point of view online and also fearless! I would also call him the most loyal advocate towards the blog movement locally. He is not tied to any traditional media channels but I can say that he does have an engaged community. I admire his discipline and appreciate the kindness when he recognizes and creates awareness of local bloggers who like him take time in sharing information with our communities.

We need more individuals like @MichaelDCC locally so bloggers can have their voices heard. I recommend you to visit his blog and share the feedback you won’t regret it.

Very Grateful

I have been very lucky to share great experiences with these 3 gentlemen I admire greatly and have never met in person. They are some of the individuals that motivate me to sit down and write on this blog. I appreciate the trust they have given me and would like you as part of my community to make them part of your communities.

Do you have any individuals that have impacted you in a positive way although you have not met them in person?

Books Recommended on this post:

The Importance of Customer Experience

March 2, 2011 by Raul Colon

An area where I think many businesses have a great opportunity on improving is Customer Experience. I see how large sums of money are spent on attracting customers and how many businesses drop the ball when those customers are visiting their facilities or in the middle of a transaction. Some organizations think Social Media can improve their customer experience and have great online presence but when you visit one of their brick and mortar stores it would have been better to just interact online.

I stopped shopping at Best Buy after many terrible experiences the worst one was in November 2009. Since Best Buy has such a solid online presence I thought they would get back to me and all they did online but I never received any resolution. I got many tweets and emails promising a resolution of the issue and to this day they did not follow through.

How did this bad customer experience affect BestBuy? I visited Bestbuy and bought something at least twice a month, since my bad experience in November 2009 I have bought to small items because I could not find them elsewhere and did not have the time to order online.

I started reading Olivier Blanchard’s @thebrandbuilder’s new book Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization (Que Biz-Tech) (amazon affiliate link) and he starts laying out a very practical framework which in some areas ties customer experience online and offline. I also want to thank @thebrandbuilder for including my name in the acknowledgments part of the book. I have used his blog posts and his material for quite some time and I feel like I owe him a big reward for creating such great content. Once I finished the book I will create a book review so I can share my experience.

Although books like @thebrandbuilder’s can guide you into trying to get Customer Experience right there are multiple factors into being succesful with creating the right customer experience.

I see small companies with little or no online presence offering great customer experiences. Some of them have such a niche market that having online presence would be key and can probably take their business to another level.

A good example is a vegetarian restaurant which I found a few days ago and I wrote about on @veglatino named Veggie Fruity. I literally found the Fountain of Youth at Ponce De Leon Avenue in Santurce, PR. I stopped to grab a quick lunch and was greeted by a very energetic and happy staff. While I waited for my order the owner Nora approached me and gave me a sample of one of the many juices they prepare at the moment. I was so engaged by the awesome customer service and the great treatment I ended having two meals, trying out many smoothies, drinks, and also taking many items to go.

The Veggie Fruity staff did not only make me a happy customer at that immediate moment she increased the Yield (a better explanation of yield is in Social Media ROI my explanation is that Yield is the number of Items or $ you can sell to one customer in one visit or transaction). She also increased her Reach by me sharing this awesome experience online with my friends and community. The frequency of my visits will increase so I think she can have a very solid customer in me.

Olivier does a great job explaining Frequency, Reach, and Yield (FRY) in the first chapters and how you can tie that to Social Media channels and efforts. Creating a great customer experience will help you improve your FRY.

Locally in Puerto Rico we need to improve customer service and it makes me very happy when we have businesses like Veggie Fruity which excel and create such an experience I can wait to go back.

If you where to manage or start your a company, which company do you want to be the Online Star that sucks at customer service? Or the awesome business with little or no online presence?

If I had my choice I would go with the second one since translating the great experience offered in a brick and mortar store into an online effort is a lot easier.

Have you had any great experiences in small businesses which need help with their online presence?

Please feel free to get your copy of @thebrandbuilder’s new book. I am 1/4 of the way into it and I have gotten lots of great info. I am also planning to give away a few copies in the next few weeks so if you want to stay up to date feel free to Subscribe to This Blog by Email.