Social media people are easily put on the defensive.

“How are you going to prove to me that social media gets me sales?”

Then you hear the social media person scrambling for the next half hour addressing that point.

Let me ask you this:

Exactly how many sales have you gotten from your:

• Manhattan address?
• Your yacht?
• Your Mercedes?
• Your NASCAR?
• Your Olympic sponsorship?

At best you are going to start talking to me about “lift.”

Most of you have no earthly idea.

But both you and I know it works.

Display advertising, the least conversion focused of all online advertising, is projected to triple in size from 2011 to 2016 according to this Search Engine Land report.

Here’s their nifty graph:

But social advertising will be less than a 5th of the display advertising size (although it does more than double in the same time frame).

This is all a psychological battle.

I will sit here until I’m blue in the fingers typing away about how you should be investing in social.

But you have some mental block up about how it doesn’t work.

So we just keep talking past each other.

But I don’t care. I’m going to keep spreading the word until you finally hear me.

So let’s say you buy a print ad or online display ad.

We all know you can’t track it. But the savvy among you are going to measure eyeballs or some such voodoo.

Fine.

But here’s the thing about that ad:

That’s the end of it. There is nothing more that will happen to that ad.

People will look at it. Maybe remember it. And with any kind of random luck someone might actually call on it.

In a Facebook sponsored story ad that is just the beginning.

I can get people to:

• Comment on it.
• Like it.
• Share it.

And then I can show that ad to their friends that says, “Hey, Sally Smith (your high school sweetheart) likes this company.”

Social advertising, specifically Facebook advertising is endlessly more valuable to your business than a banner ad or print ad.

Tell yourself that your customers aren’t on Facebook. Tell yourself that social media isn’t right for your business.

But just realize this: You aren’t coming to this from a point of proof or logic. You just have a thing against social media.