Social business is not a “marketing shortcut”, i.e. requiring low time and money investment while paying high dividends in branding and sales. For social business to be effective, an investment proportionate to it will be required.

But how much should you invest? The short answer is “That depends”, but I’ll try to give you some direction here with a number of examples on three levels:

• High-Level Strategic activities such as social business strategy. customer/brand planning and integration with corporate (marketing) activities.
• Mid-Level Operational activities such as organizational roll-out, presence management and brand monitoring.
• Low-Level Day-to-day tasks on platforms like blogs, Twitter and Facebook.

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