Social Media ROI Reality Check

You expect a few weeks of posts to move the needle. We’ve been there—and we’ve watched that expectation wreck good strategies and strong partnerships. This conversation resets how to think about social media ROI, not as instant sales magic, but as the credibility layer that turns referrals into real revenue and keeps your brand top of mind when buyers do their homework.

We walk through the journey from Yellow Pages and TV spots to the early days of Facebook’s outsized organic reach, and into today’s reality where attention is scarce and competition is fierce. Instead of chasing hacks, we focus on what works now: consistent, useful content; clear calls to action; smart use of keywords in captions; and formats that align with your strengths. You’ll hear why word of mouth still sits at the top of the funnel, how your social profiles function as proof of life, and why your feed should sell your skill and reliability before anyone picks up the phone.

We also dig into measurement that matters. Monthly analytics, side-by-side comparisons, and attribution questions reveal which posts and formats move warm leads toward bookings. Don’t love video? Use strong images and graphics while staying authentic and on brand. Overwhelm creeping in? Break the process into manageable steps, audit your presence across Google and social, and improve steadily rather than sporadically. The takeaway is simple: social media compounds. It validates your reputation, fills search results with proof, and supports sales made through relationships.

Ready to level up how you show up online? Listen now, then subscribe, share this with a business friend who needs a mindset reset, and leave a quick review to help more owners find these strategies.

Chapters

• 0:53 Setting The Stage: Expectations
• 1:23 Why Social Media Isn’t Instant
• 2:31 Old School To Digital Shift
• 4:01 The Golden Era Of Organic Reach
• 5:41 Competing For Attention Today
• 7:05 Word Of Mouth Versus Digital
• 8:57 Social Profiles As Proof Of Life
• 11:12 Mindset Shift And Measurement

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:27

Hey y'all, what's up? Welcome to another episode of the Marketing Happy Hour podcast. Today I just want to have a conversation with you as if you were a client that had this issue. It has happened, this is the end of the year 2025, and it's happened a lot in the past few months. And it's just something that I think a conversation is needed, and I try to do it ahead of time when I um get hired by clients, but maybe it's something that people aren't aware of or really can understand. And so that's why I want to have this conversation with you today is about why social media doesn't work overnight. I just recently had a client hire me, and I had the conversation like I always do. I say, you know what? Social media is all about laying the foundation, it's about when you get referred to and people can go see everything that you have going on before they call you. And she completely understood. She says, yes, absolutely, absolutely, okay, okay, okay. She hires us. And about a month and a half in, she was like, you know, I just don't think this is working for me. My ROI is not what I expected it to be. So then I continue to have the conversation of what her expectations are. What exactly are you thinking the ROI should be for social media marketing? What kind of idea do you have around social media marketing? So I just want to share with you guys my perspective of social media when it comes to marketing your business on it and what your expectations should be and what your mindset should be around social media for your business. And I'm gonna do a little bit of a backstory. So when social media first started, I had a window tint shop. Um, and before social media even had um, it had like personal profiles, it didn't have business profiles until 2016. So I ran an entire business through marketing, um, different ways, like quote unquote old school ways. Um, and it was like through yellow books, through um, or yellow book, it was through uh not yellow book, yellow pages. Um, it was also through uh TV ads. Um, we did a ton of networking like in groups and through the chamber and stuff like that. And then whenever Facebook started offering business pages, we got to transfer everything over to digital. At the very beginning, our ROI was so big on Facebook, not even Instagram at that time. Instagram didn't even have business accounts, so ROI on Facebook was so easy to get, like it was, you know, boost this post even before then. Let's talk about organic posting. One post would reach thousands of people without even having to pay for it. Then they came out with ads, which actually was boosting um before ads. And so then it was like, okay, now boost the post for$10 and you could reach thousands more people for so cheap. So your ROI was like super good, right? So, like your return of$10 was worth it because you got hired by so many people and you didn't have to spend that much money. Fast forward to almost 10 years from then, and it has changed drastically. We see ads all the time, we're constantly competing to get in front of people's faces, we're competing for attention, we're making sure that we have all the right keywords, we're making sure the hashtags are good, the call to actions are good. There's just so much more that goes into social media. And I like to explain this as if you have social media and you're looking into like hiring someone to do the marketing for you, like digital marketing for you, understand that it will never replace word of mouth. Digital marketing will never replace word of mouth. That will always be your number one source of marketing and efforts that's gonna come back to you. You can measure that. You also know where that came from, if it came from social media, like someone say an ISO, or um if it's coming from a leads group, or if it's coming from a referral of a past client. Word of mouth and your reputation will always, always, always be number one in marketing for your small business or any size business. But let's say that somebody refers your business to their friend. Well, they're going to look at your website, they're gonna look at your social media, they're gonna read your Google reviews before they even call you. Yes, they trust their friend, they know their friend was happy with you, but they wanna go and they wanna see what have you done for other people. So your social media presence, as well as your website, but right now it's focused on social media, your social media should sell your you and your service before they even call you. You need to add value, you need to educate, you need to show proof of life that you're still around. I always use the example of a restaurant. If I'm gonna go visit a new restaurant, I'm totally checking out their Instagram, I'm checking out their Facebook, I'm looking at their menu on their website. I wanna see what kind of food, what kind of quality do they have to offer me before I even decide if I'm gonna go. So you need to make sure that your social media is up to date, you're posting consistently, as well as you're educating and telling people how good you are and why you're better than your competition without outright saying, I'm better than my competition. So when you let's say you are that small business owner that I'm talking about at the beginning of this, that she was like, I just don't see the ROI. The ROI of social media is going to be proof of life. Me and my friend Shell talk about this all the time. You need to have proof of life on the internet. Everything you post on the internet is going to Google. So then you're not just on social media, it's also being pushed to Google. If you Google my first and last name, I'm on the first four pages of Google. That means that everything I've done through the podcasting, through the website, through publishing my book, through the press releases that I've had sent out for me, um, through all the interviews that I've had on TV, um, through the social media posts on my personal as well as my business has all paid off because I've not paid Google to actually put me on the first four pages. So that's why it's important to change your mindset around social media. Don't just think, oh, well, I'm paying this person$500 a month to do three posts a week and I'm not seeing anything whatsoever. But you are. You are showing people who you are and you're showing people that you're gonna show up. If you've read my book or if you even have interest in reading my book, I talk about showing up online is just as important as showing up for your clients when they call you. So if you're showing up online consistently, then you are already telling your future client or customer that you're gonna show up for them consistently. And whenever people hire me, I do have this conversation with them. I'm very real about it. I'm like, you know what? I prove to you the way that my my job for you, what I'm doing for you, what you're paying for me or paying me to do, I prove to you that it's working through numbers. So you get monthly analytics, you compare and contrast. I say this kind of posting's working, this kind of posting's not working, we need real photos, let's come in and do some videography, let's like change it up a bit. That's what you have to do. You have to be more fluid in social media. I want you to look at your numbers, compare and contrast. What's working, what's not working. Do you need to change the time of day? Don't get overwhelmed with the idea of social media. Just stay consistent and stay on top of it. I am not asking you to go to TikTok and make every trendy video that has ever been out there. I'm not asking you to do that. If that's something you feel comfortable in, 100% do it. Like, be true to yourself. If you're not comfortable with video, don't freaking do video. I tell people this all the time when they're like, I know I really need to do a video. Yes, there is a need for video. Yes, I would love to see more of that from my clients. Am I gonna sit here and make them super awkward and hate themselves just to have a video for social media? Absolutely not. If it works best for them that we take still images and we make graphics with their logos on it and we make sure the content's good, then absolutely that's what works for them. That's them showing up as themselves authentically so that way they feel more comfortable and they know that okay, what's going out there is actually something that's a good reflection of me. So I want you after this episode to just think about what is your mindset around social media? How can you change it to make sure that your expectations are set correctly about social media? I don't want you thinking so high and your expectations set so high that you get overwhelmed and you're like, oh, this isn't even working for me. Like, I don't even know what to do. Like, okay, I'm just not gonna do it at all. No, that's worst case scenario. Do not stop doing it. I want you to take it one bite at a time, do something new, be more consistent on social media. And I promise you, the ROI is there. Just look at the numbers, ask where people are finding out about you. Google yourself, Google your business, see what's going on, do an audit of your social media, do an audit of your your website presence, do an audit of your presence all around the internet, and just really see where that traffic's coming from. And of course, if you need help with any of that stuff, I'm always here. You can email me Shelby D shelby at the Marketingbroker.com, or you can check out my website. You can create a free consultation, schedule that with me. I would love to go through the audit with you and really see where we can increase your presence and also increase your ROI for your social media and where all that's coming from. Alright, guys, I'll catch you on the next one.