I read Chris Brogan’s latest blog post today, which told the story of Bob (not his real name). The basis of the story is that Bob engaged the customers of the company he works for by interacting with them online.

This was via a forum, and Bob found that the customers in question loved the fact he was communicating with them. It was as if the company he worked for really wanted to know what their customers thought.

However, Bob’s company found out about his online conversations and senior managers weren’t happy – despite the fact Bob was putting the company in a hugely positive light. I won’t give you all the details – Chris describes it far better in his own inimitable style, and I’d highly recommend reading it. Suffice to say, it was the example of another company not getting social media.

Why is this? Why do so many companies, small and large, fail so miserably to get what could be one of the best promotional tools they could ever have? Is it because they don’t understand it? Or is it because they just see it as a waste of time because there’s no tangible return on investment (ROI)?

A good friend of mine has an interesting view on ROI in social media. Chris Kelly, a new media marketing expert working at 77Academy, offers his viewpoints from a marketer’s perspective. What makes Chris’s views even more interesting is the fact that, despite being the traditional type of professional for whom ROI is everything, Chris acknowledges that this isn’t the way to go.

In one of Chris’s recent blog posts, he talks of how businesses – and marketer’s in particular – are getting it wrong by approaching social media from an ownership perspective. While it would obviously be simpler for businesses to understand social media if there was a tangible ROI to work from, this won’t happen for the simple fact that social media doesn’t work this way.

It’s about connecting with your customers, and helping them make decisions. Not telling them how to make these decisions, but offering the knowledge and tools that will help them to decide instead.

You want to sell your latest gardening supertool to the masses? Get online, meet your audience, listen to what they’re saying and converse. As a human being. As a person. Not as a corporate entity who reads everything from an autocue.

The companies that get this idea will be the ones that benefit. They’ll be the ones that employ guys like Chris Kelly and listen to consultants like Chris Brogan. The others? They’ll be Bob’s employers – though for how long remains questionable. After all, it’s easier to change companies than it is to change mindsets.

But I’m sure Bob has already figured that one out.

For Those About to Bob – We Salute You originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.