Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Do You Know How Much A Like Is Worth?
In this age of social media everything, companies are scrambling to find ways to measure and quantify their social media activity.
Likes, Followers, Shares and ReTweets have given way to a cottage industry of measurement tools, but, in lieu of traditional ROI, do any of these metrics, like Klout Scores and Peer Indexes, provide a key indicator for success?
I’m of the mind that they don’t. While they measure activity, they don’t translate this information into sales or at the very least learning.
Creating engagement through social channels is important. Here are a few ways to move your friends and followers into a more results oriented relationship:
- Incent people to opt-in for email communication. Doing so allows you track how they heard about you, and then you can actively market and test offers.
- Use microsites and unique URL promotions on social channels to measure interest of your fan base.
- Use coupon codes (or actual coupons if a CPG company) that are specific to a social channel to track activity to sales.
By knowing if people are coming to your site or store from social channels you can begin to measure the value of a Facebook Fan and the return on your marketing efforts. This will help you determine if it is worth growing your fan base or followers.
Social media can play an important role in your marketing communications plans, and just like any media, you need to put the tools in place to determine what its worth to your company.
Are You Listening?
Listening to the customer is the core of every sales training manual and customer service seminar, yet companies often fail to hear what is being said.
I recently attended the IIR Social Media conference, and heard many times over that corporate leadership didn’t want to hear about negative feedback from customers.
With social media playing a greater role as a resource to provide instant feedback, the customer voice is becoming more and more difficult to ignore.
- Betty White appeared on SNL two weeks ago due to an outpouring of support from fans on Facebook (probably the most entertaining SNL episode this season).
- Nestle recently announced a zero deforestation policy, after ignoring organizations like Greenpeace regarding their sourcing of palm oil
- IKEA’s typeface change caused an uproar that IKEA wasn’t aware of until Lisa Abend, a reporter for TIME International (and my sister), brought it to their attention
Even if your company is not actively participating in social media, here are some ideas to monitor what your customers think of your company, your industry and your competitors:
- Yelp, Kudzu, Citysearch – Regularly monitor these rating sites
- Search.Twitter.com – Twitter’s search engine. Just type in what you are interested in or use hashtags (#) before your word to see what comes up
- Social Mention, Alterian SM2 – free tools that give you a nice snap shot of what it is being said across social media channels
- Ripoff Report – when people are very unhappy, they’ll post it here
Social media may not be the right marketing tool for your business, but it is the right tool to help you listen to what your customers are saying.
What is your Facebook page worth?
Companies are constantly asking themselves if they should have a Facebook presence and, if so, what is it worth?
To help answer that question Vitrue has introduced their Social Page Evaluator that takes into account the health and potential value of your Facebook presence. It also provides tips on how to improve your value.
While this is not a tool I would bet my business on, it is fun and can give you bragging rights versus your competition.
How much is your page worth?
Yes Virginia There Is ROI in Social Media
A common theme at IIR’s social media and community 2.0 strategies conference revolved around getting management to buy-in to social media initiatives.
Promoting what, Dawn Lacallade, Solarwinds, calls community health – participation, feedback – might be a nice measure of success for a community manager, but they aren’t going to convince a CEO to invest.
To gain a CEO’s commitment you need to demonstrate business value. You need to think in terms of ROI.
- Improved net promoter score driven by a closer with your customers
- Reduced customer service costs due to the community answering the consumer questions
- Increased sales by better knowing what the consumer wants
The good news is case studies are emerging regarding the positive impact of social media.
- Solarwinds’ R&D budget allocation runs approximately 50% lower than industry average driven by their community involvement in product development
- One of the 35 ideas by Turbo Tax’s Inner Circle members has generated $19MM in revenue over three years
- Scholastic tapped into its community to redesign its flyer resulting in a 3% increase in sales versus its former design
How are you defining the return on your social media investment?
Which Department Should Own Social Media?
Many presentations at Monday’s sessions at Social Media and Community 2.0 discussed the involvement of various departments in the launch of online communities.
The speakers were community managers who had the benefit of working across departments while staying faithful to the communities they served. They limit marketing messages, engage the proper resources when necessary, set up guidelines and manage the health of the community.
Companies instinctively think that marketing and communications should own social media, largely because it is seen as another channel to convey the marketing message.
However, I heard today that many believe that companies should limit marketing involvement in social media in order to foster the relationship without appearing disingenuous.
If you don’t have the resources for a community manager who do you think is best suited to own and cultivate the user relationship?
The Importance of Creating A Social Voice
- Singular
- Anonymous
- Consistent, Professional
- Company Voice
- Used Everywhere Consistently
- Multiple voices (defined by their agents and employees)
- Authentic
- Transparent
- Conversational
- Voice of real people so people can let their personality come through
- Varies by topic, channel
Social Media and Community 2.0 Strategies
Learn how companies like AAA, Scottrade, Best Buy and Citibank are using social media as we attend IIR’s Social Media and Community 2.0 Strategies conference.
Monday’s sessions include:
- Building social media programs – American Family Insurance
- Overcoming B2B social media challenges – GE Healthcare
- Making your online community an active one – Scottrade
- Realizing you need social media – AAA
- Strengthening your brand with communities – Career Builder
- How not to create corporate communities – Valpak
- To build a community or join one – Yahoo
- Growing your community – Current TV
- Gaining buy-in from your company – Best Buy
- How to build a social media program right the first time – EMC, Tripadvisor, Ebay
Follow our Twitter feed for immediate updates or visit this blog or the conference blog to learn more.
2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report from Social Media Examiner
Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner has put together a nice report on how marketers are using social media. Check it out here.
Are You Treating All Your Social Media Channels The Same?
Social media marketing is getting easier every day, especially with great tools like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck that simultaneously spread your message across all your social channels.
A recent study by ad network Chitika suggests that broadcasting the same message across the various social networks may not be the most effective way to engage your customers.
The study noted that the type of information consumed on four popular social networks – MySpace, Digg, Facebook and Twitter – varied by network.
Twitter users were significantly more interested in news, while MySpace users had a penchant for gaming and entertainment. Digg users had the greatest interest in news, celebrity & entertainment, and gaming, while Facebook users were interested in news and community.
Just like your audience varies on different social channels, the information they desire is different as well. So if you are treating all the channels the same way, you may be missing the opportunity to truly connect.
Social media is about creating a forum to communicate with your audience, listening to them, and providing them with information they want to receive. Doing so creates interest, trust and ultimately evangelists.
By engaging your audience with relevant messaging, you can learn what they what they want from your company, what you are doing well and where you can make improvements.
Passive social media gives you the ability to listen to your audience and understand their wants and needs. Listening can help your company become more efficient, more innovative and more customer-focused. And when that happens, both your company and your customers win.
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Want to learn how companies like Zappo’s, P&G, Burt’s Bees and others are improving their business through social media? Attend IIR’s Social Media & Community 2.0 Strategies conference. To learn more visit http://bit.ly/d7mUWG and use code XM2205SMB to save 15%.
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Negative Comments Equals Great Opportunity
0 CommentsThursday • March 17, 2011 • by admin
Social media can impact your company in two main ways:
It’s both fulfilling and frustrating at the same time. When you do good things, you want as many people as possible to talk about you to their friends and contacts. It’s when things aren’t going as well that you wish social media didn’t spread the word so quickly.
So what should you do about it?
The simple answer: Respond.
According to The Retail Consumer Report, 68% of consumers who posted a complaint or negative review on a social networking site received a response from the retailer.
So how does this impact your business? According to the study, after the response to the initial complaint:
And if you wonder about the impact of social media on your business, note that almost 33% researched consumer input through either social networks or online reviews before visiting the retailer.
There are free services like Google Alerts and Social Mention that can help you track the conversation about your company on a basic level. However, if you want more depth in your social media tracking, you may want to look at more robust tools like Alterian SM2 (full disclosure I have a paid subscription to this social media monitoring tool), Consumerbase, Radian6 and others.
In today’s day of exponential word of mouth, finding out what people are saying and then rectifying negative situations proves to be a great marketing tool.