subject: Patience is Not My Virtue [print this page] Patience is Not My Virtue Patience is Not My Virtue
Patience is not one of my strongest traits; I just wasn't given much of it. What I do possess is the drive to work hard and the ability to persevere. I compensate for my lack of patience by staying as busy as possible. When my time is filled, it passes exponentially faster, and whatever I am waiting for does not seem so far away.
I'm not advocating for mindless, busy work, but rather, physical actions that help advance my end goal. I often begin by determining what about the situation I can change as well as the areas I cannot affect. One of my best friends always says, "Control your controllables'."
When you look to measure ROI for social media activities, remember to be patient. I know it's difficult, especially when supervisors and managers insist on seeing results instantaneously. First of all, be thankful your management sees the value in social media initiatives and then watch this video:
Don't get hung up on only counting dollars, customer traffic, or even number of units sold...at least in the beginning. These metrics are important, but you need to measure the level of engagement with your "x" number of fans. Do they come to your rescue if someone speaks ill of you? Do they comment on or retweet about your products/services?
Use your time and energy to analyze what metrics make sense for your brand/product. Perhaps that means the number of your followers on Twitter is a true indicator of performance, or maybe it is how many consumers enter your Facebook sweepstakes extravaganza.
I think everyone struggles with the patience part of social media, but in the end, it pays off. BIG TIME!
