Last Friday on the ChurchCrunch Blog the senior editor John Saddington asked a question about social media's return on investment or ROI for ministry.  I responded to the post and then again to a commenter, however, I thought I should put all of my thoughts here on the eyespeak blog and hopefully get it all in one place.

Thanks to John for finding this video!

When I talk to prospective clients, both for profit and not for profit, I start by breaking down the idea of ROI and implementing the idea of getting a Return on Influence or ROIn.  While you can quantify page views, subscribers, friends, followers, and fans, the biggest piece of the pie is the intangible influence you gain.

Gaining influence is a process, the more developed your real world platform is, the more quickly you will see a growth in your influence.  I tell our clients that it is a marathon not a sprint.  The results are not like other forms of advertising.  Results in social media come in sentences, comments, pictures, and videos.  They come in the form of a recommendation on Twitter or a passing along of a blog post to a colleague.

Just like the video shows; there is a return on your investment in social media.  That return is measured first in influence and then in dollars.