We ran into Kathy at several social media strategy events throughout the past year. Kathy has been instrumental in leading NWI businesses through social media consulting, helping their team members serve local consumers. We were lucky enough to attend one of Kathy’s social media training classes that was helpful for beginners. More companies are using  social media marketing in attempt to reach more customers and stay connected with existing customers. We will be looking forward to attending more of Kathy’s classes this year.

Last week I met with a group of real estate agents hungry for information on social media marketing. Besides just learning about it, they were curious to know “how much time is this going to take?” and “what return will I get on my investment?”

An effective social media program does require some time. It’s not a magic machine that you set up once and forget about. By definition, that form of media would not be very social or interactive, which are two of the things that make social media marketing such a potentially effective vehicle for connecting with other people.

The social media marketing tools I showed are free. That doesn’t mean that they come without “cost” as time is obviously worth something. What other marketing channels are open to Realtors (or other business people) that don’t cost time and/or money? Realtors spend time putting together print ads that run in home magazines; they pay a lot of money to run the ads and they spend time putting the ads together. The ads don’t magically design themselves, after all. I asked what return they were getting on these print ads and all but one or two had no answer. For some reason, social media seems to be held to a different standard and I’m not sure why, but I think because it is largely because it is unknown and seems unmanageable without a roadmap.

Kathy has established herself as, one realtor put it, “My Social Media Coach” in the Northern Indiana area.