On the other hand you’ll not get much from those closing dozens of transactions as a result of their 2.0 efforts. They often don’t wish to share. Wearing their shoes, why should they give others the key to the vault?

It works — the problem is, as you’ve said, getting reliable data on which to make equally reliable conclusions.

Not an easy task — some might say virtually impossible.

Love your take.

FYI, if you make $100K a year doing nothing but blogging for 80 hours a week, assuming 2 week vacation, you’re making $25/hour. Heh.

Yeah, you’re close — what I’m looking for is data. Even presonal, one-off data. But ideally, I guess I’m trying to provoke the 1000Watts and Swanepoels of the world to undertake a study of Web 2.0 techniques.

And i think maybe I’m giving the impression that Web 2.0 stuff isn’t worth doing; that is the farthest thing from my intent. I think they’re worth doing — I just want to capture and quantify that as much as possible.

-rsh

One either derives income from blogging/social networking or they do not.

If you work 80 hours weekly doing nothing but those two activities and earn six figures, what’s your return? How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Only if you can make more doing something else do the 80 hours come into question — which is of course an opportunity cost problem. Of course, even that equation might be worthless to a particular real estate agent who’d rather make less money going 2.0 than knocking doors or whatever.

This reminds me of the whole SEO #$%^storm caused by a BHB post I wrote several months ago.

The bottom line there is the same as it is here — either you’re making money doing it or you’re not. Bragging about all the contacts you’ve made might increase your daily dose of endorphins, but not much else. Last time I checked, my banker was still not allowing me to ‘deposit’ all those good contacts in my account.

The rest, it seems to me, is a whole lot of esoteric albeit elegant rhetoric about not much.

Rob — I’m feeling your take on this, I think. It appears to me you’re pretty much looking for quantifiable results and a whole lot less mind bending explanations about how one deal makes someone’s life different.

Am I close?

Good stuff.

I agree that we may be debating underlying beliefs and assumptions. And I further agree that the “level of proof” needed is dependent on the person and the need.

Because you’re 100% right to the extent that almost every marketing ROI study or lift-over-control report I’ve seen or worked with would not pass muster with scientific inquiry. All of them have gaping holes and major assumptions — the better studies at least state those assumptions.

The point, I suppose, is that to some extent, “proof is in the eye of the beholder”. You — comfortable with chaos and ambiguity — may consider it enough that good things happened after you started blogging. Others — who need a bit more support for decisionmaking — may want to see some data.

Nonetheless, that does not, IMHO, remove the need for data and proof. I dispute that effect of marketing, of social networking activities, cannot be measured at all. I can accept that they can’t be measured with scientific precision, since that standard is unattainable by anything that involves human beings (see, e.g., economics statistics). But they can be measured, and should be measured as best as possible.

On Knowledge expiring… oh, I totally agree. And our goals, I think, are identical: we want to encourage agents to share as much of their knowledge as possible. I was merely pointing out that when knowledge turns over, it turns over whether shared or not. But as you mention, it was an inexact analogy.

Thanks for your response; love the discussion.

-rsh

I will restate my assertion by echoing what Todd says: What you’re asking to measure cannot be measured, at least for now.

As with many debates, we are actually debating the underlying beliefs and assumptions that we make. In my view, this one comes down to work/personality styles and the extent to which a person is comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity.

As I see it, there are too many variables at play in the business world to attempt to isolate one of them and say that it (and it alone) caused the lift. Even in your web analogy, where the site goes from 300 to 3000 daily visits after adding a blog, there are many other factors that could affect this. The “control” is far too uncontrollable.

I believe the world is chaotic. See, I want proof just as much as the next guy, but in the absence of proof, I will go with what seems to be working. Some might call that superstition. I call it pragmatism. That’s my personality type: I’m comfortable with ambiguity, uncertainty and creation by iteration. Others aren’t, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, I’m glad I have the analytical fact-finders on my team.

I will debate the knowledge as inventory metaphor. It is admittedly a loose metaphor. I will argue one point: It is true that knowledge expires. In the accounting profession, it has been noted that the body of knowledge completely turns over every six years, and that the rate of change is increasing. Real estate has just as many rules and regs, so it’s essential that agents share their knowledge “while it’s hot” and continually refresh their inventory.

I think what you mention is the temptation for us all. It’s so easy to say, Different Strokes for Different Folks! and be done with the hard questions.

But I guess my point is that if “it” works for Ben and only Ben, at some point, there has to be some evidence showing that “it” is working only-for-Ben. Yes, every person is a little different, but techniques either work or they don’t for that particular person.

If blogging/social networking does indeed work (however we define that word), then the person using it should be able to show some proof, some lift over control, if only to convince himself that what he’s doing is valuable.

For example, what Scott Rogers at VARbuzz wrote (see comment #1) is at least some evidence of something going on. Now if we could only relate web traffic –> conversion –> leads –> transactions… then we could actually quantify ROI…

Yum.

-rsh

I’ve found that what works for one guy is worthless to another. someone who excels in social media might be to shy to cold call, or simply bad at golf. There is no “Someone like Ben”. every person is a little different.

If social media is working for Ben, it’s working for Ben. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

While I still haven’t seen a definitive financial return from having started blogging five months ago, this morning I wrote a post outlining some very well defined lift over control results for web traffic.