The fact is that no one that I’ve seen (and I’ve been a business management consultant with over 30 years experience working with everything from entrepreneurs to top Fortune 500 companies) has ever been able to quantify the real benefit of social media for business. Yes, there’s this idea that people communicate differently with companies today, but still there’s no real proof that I’ve ever seen from anyone that it has much positive impact on the bottom line for companies.

In reality it appears that most companies use it becauses they don’t want to deal with the real issue of sales. They want to try every angle at marketing they can and avoid sales, which is the real way money is made in companies.

In addition, the time that has to be invested in social media by companies equates to a lot of man hours and cost to a company. Unlike other forms of marketing that are long established, there is no real record to show as proof that companies make money. An old fashioned marketing plan with advertising can tell a company that if they invest $10,000 they can expect an average of $______ return for that type of investment.

Ultimately social media may have a place in business, but it appears that it will be smaller than many today think it is. Once the newness wears off in a few years my guess is that it will not be seen as important as people are promoting it to be today.

However when it comes to making a business case I find this needs to focus on what the company is trying to do (objectives) and then showing the business how these could be achieved through a range of different approaches and tools. The toughest part can be removing pre-conceived ideas.