Attention is Not Free

Consider this fluff story about social media and franchising, from Entrepreneur.

"In April 2009, after a buy-one, get-one-free e-mail promotion bumped up his business by 40 percent on a single Tuesday, Zpizza franchisee Michael Blank of Alexandria, Va., decided that he needed to do more digital marketing.

As he started to look into social media, he realized that using Facebook and Twitter would give him an opportunity to inform his customers about deals and specials and allow him to begin conversations with them.

He persuaded the company's headquarters to move forward with social networking, and now the Zpizza Facebook page has more than 1,700 fans while his region's Twitter presence has nearly 600 followers.

Although the return on tweeting coupon codes and sharing specials on Facebook hasn't reached the 40 percent mark he had experienced earlier, Blank is sure that it will as more people learn about Zpizza's presence.

To get there, he's working with local mothers to encourage them to blog information about and reviews of the restaurant. "It's an incredibly cheap way to brand and market yourself," he says, because most social networking sites and blogs are free."

The tools by which traditional one way media is made social can be cheap, moderate or expensive. 

But what this article failed to highlight is how much time Blank put in "working with local mothers" to gain their attention and the rate of return for his attention getting efforts.

Would this have been better spent on simply re-marketing to existing customers using an opt-in email newsletter, with coupons?

Most market professionals note the very low rate of conversion using Facebook, primarily because people using Facebook are looking for attention with their posts, and not looking to buy.  Search still dominates this channel.