I’m integrating my social media efforts and email. Since it’s not possible to sell within Facebook, I generate leads from there and whilst I’m still engaging within Facebook I’m marketing to my leads via email. Social media is about relationship marketing but it has to yield a tangible ROI otherwise what’s the point. This approach has been working pretty well for my business.

Thanks

Nicky

Sean — it would be great to get some audience engagement here in the comments. I bet we could draw in some great insight.

Jon — as far as budgeting goes, Loren McDonald, albeit speaking specifically about social media channels, told me that a great idea is to just carve out a part of the budget for the channel (email, social, mobile, etc.) and not for specific campaigns.

The reasoning is there are so many new things happening, you want to have the money to jump in if it fits your overall strategy.

For example, did you plan for Pinterest pinning in your last budget? Probably not. But depending on your target audience, Pinterest might be the key element that makes, or breaks, your latest campaign.