Feb

26

Social Media PAYOFF or ROI

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ROI
This is the 3rd part of a 4 part series on Social Media (links provided in case you have missed the first two): WHAT, WHY, PAYOFF, and (coming next) HOW.

Social Media Payoff (ROI) is tough to measure, and some will say you can’t calculate it yet. It is too soon because Social Media Marketing is so new. That being said, there are definite payoffs being enjoyed by businesses of all sizes and in all markets.

We will list some specific companies and numbers below, but first let’s discuss a very important consideration that will affect ROI outcome. There are many ways to implement social media marketing and some may have little or no return on investment. Participating in social media in ways that are effective involve two major components: engagement in the form of conversation (not selling), and active involvement (not a once and forget method of marketing). Companies that utilize social media in the same way that the people they want to target WANT TO BE SOCIAL, will enjoy the most success in terms of ultimately growing brand awareness and ROI online.

While there is still a place for search engine optimization (SEO), where a website is optimized to rank high in the search engines, we now have social media marketing, including social sites that are ranking high in the search engines. No longer do we have to pay thousands of dollars to buy backlinks to a business website. Today, we must spend the TIME that is required to participate in social media for the greatest payoff.

The fact that social media marketing does not have a fixed cost is true because each social media project is unique and will require varying amounts of time, tools, services, etc. A social media plan should include comprehensive use of available social media sites and opportunities for engagement, and should be targeted to the industry, product, or service. A generic plan without a focus on the business will not work.

What most people who work in the social media field understand is that trying to put a cost on conversation is hard to do. Also, social media marketing usually does not produce instant results. If this is true, how do we measure success?

One way is to measure the feedback you are getting. Are there positive responses being posted, and is there growth in terms of numbers of people engaging with the company online? If the business is getting active supporters, they will – in time – spread the word.

It is important to understand that social media marketing takes hard work, consistent effort, and engaging in ways that are helpful, entertaining, educational, or enlightening. This is the way you build a group of followers who want to take action by telling their online friends when you announce something of value.

There are tools to use that can help measure ROI in terms of: your reach, traffic to the website, influence in the market, conversions, and
retention. Google analytics is a free service that can track information for any website. There are other free services and many paid services as well. Links to the website can be tracked with backlink tools. The numbers of fans, followers, members, etc. in social sites is readily accessible in each of the individual sites.

Worthy of repeating is the idea that social media marketing is ongoing and requires active participation. People will not stay engaged if there is not regular, new content posted. There are many other websites that will pull for their attention. If you give them a reason to come back, they will not only come back but tell others to do the same.

Some numbers that testify to the ROI businesses can achieve:

BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube blending everything from an iPhone to a sneaker.

Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.

Vaynerchuk (WineLibrary.tv) found first hand that $15,000 in Direct Mail = 200 new customers, $7,500 in Billboard Advertising = 300 new customers, AND $0 with Twitter = 1,800 new customers.

Naked Pizza, all natural Pizzeria in New Orleans, that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media. In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.” And 85% of their new customers were from Twitter.

Safeway has 62,615 fans of Facebook.

Intuit introduced “Live Community” into their TurboTax® products 2 years ago. Due in part to the resulting word-of-mouth, they have seen unit sales increase +30% each year and have now integrated “Live Community” into their other products like QuickBooks, Quicken, etc.

Tweets for a Cause sent out a tweet from Atlanta to encourage support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a result of retweets, the Atlanta Chapter site received 11,000 visitors in 24 hours as a result of this initiative by ResponseMine Interactive.

Software company Genius.com reports 24% of its social media leads convert to sales opportunities.

Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook program incented users to give up ten of their Facebook friends in return for a free Whopper. The estimated investment for this program was less than $50,000 yet they received 32 million media impressions which roughly estimated equals greater than $400,000 in press/media value. Which to put in context is somewhat like reaching the entire populations of 19 states (understanding this doesn’t account for unique vs. repeat visitors, etc.)

One survey found that 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It.

The takeaway is that if you work your social media plan with integrity and the commitment to contribute value, on an every-day consistent basis, the same as you would do offline in relationships with prospects – it becomes easy and natural. That is what people are looking for in advertising and marketing – and that is what they will reward by doing business with you and referring you to others as well.

To learn more, visit our social media marketing page.

Feb

24

WHY Social Media?

Filed Under Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing | 1 Comment

WHY

Yesterday we discussed ‘WHAT is Social Media’ (if you missed it, check out the post here) and scheduled the ‘WHY’ for today.

STRONG WHY:

Successful businesses who want to grow will keep up to date with marketing methods that will work for their industry.  Social Media is the NEW way to advertise or market a business, and it will work with any market because so many people now have access to the internet.  Let’s agree with the fact that, now, people go online to get information and to make buying decisions more than they go to the local newspaper or yellow page books.  That’s a fact.

The other part of the story is that we are living in the age of information, where we are able to access more information than ever before, and connect with people at almost every level of a business than ever was possible in the past.  People want to ask questions, have discussions, get feedback from trusted friends, and they are doing this on the internet.  CEO’s of major companies are present in social channels online, and talking with customers, prospects, or whoever is asking them questions.

The next consideration is that even if you are not participating, your customers and prospects are.  They’re already online, talking about the kinds of  products or services that you represent, maybe they are talking about you, and probably they are talking about your competition.  Chances are that your competition is there as well.  And every day that you aren’t, you are losing potential business.

What are people doing online when they are researching products and services they are interested?

Watching video clips

Reading articles on blogs, websites, and news sites

Visiting business social pages

Viewing images

Listening to podcasts

Talking in forums

Being active in communities

Businesses in every market are using all of the above to connect with people, engage in conversation with them, attracting new and loyal customers from this transparent new way to market.  On the internet, it is imperative to be genuine and reputable because if you are not, someone is going to tell the world about it.

When you start using Social Media for your business, the most important advice you can take is to CARE about your message and CARE about the people who will see and respond to it.  That will lead to a very important WHY:  you will build a group of customers who will not only be satisfied with the service or product you provide them, but will become ADVOCATES for you by spreading the word through this very viral community of the internet.

It may seem overwhelming until we get to the HOW do you actually ‘do’ Social Media.  That’s coming in a future post (or available by clicking on the WWW (world wide web) picture on the top right of this page) – for now it is important that you understand the WHAT, WHY, and PAYOFF associated with social media marketing.

Tomorrow’s discussion:  PAYOFF, or ROI, with Social Media.

Feb

7

What is Social Media and Social Media Marketing?

Filed Under Internet Marketing, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments

WHAT

The more you dig into the Social Media world, the more answers you may get in terms of definition of the term.  Collectively, they still add up to the same thing.  Social media is conversation that takes place online.

The internet is where people now go to get information on products, services, businesses, locations, directions, etc.  The internet is also where people are talking to each other about all of these things.

Social media is the communication between both individuals and groups – in all kinds of ways – all over the world wide web. The social sites that we use to engage in conversations are our marketing tools.  Tools will come and go, but this advertising and marketing method is here to stay.  Remember that the internet is still very young, and every day new people are getting access.

Social media is an opportunity for people to talk directly with major brands in a way that was never available before.  And small businesses can use social media exactly the way much larger businesses are doing – right now there is nothing to hold any business back from participating.

The cost of social media is measured more in terms of time than it is in dollars.  In order to effectively join this new way to market a business, and have success with it, there has to be a consistent and sincere effort to engage on the popular social networking sites as well as industry specific locations.

Advertising and marketing is no longer about pushing out a message, in the form of an advertisement, to a general crowd or even a targeted market.  People do not want to be ’sold to’ anymore.  Prospective buyers want information, referrals, testimonies, and conversation about a brand, service, or products.

Social media is about attracting a crowd, pulling them in to your message, by engaging them in conversation, posting valuable (helpful) content online, entertaining, educating, enlightening their market.

And it’s not only enough to provide this great content.  The other part of Social Media is the marketing of the message:  Social Media Marketing.  Helping the content to be seen to an even wider audience is achieved by consistent efforts to market the messages in strategic (non-selling) ways.

Promoting your business online using online social channels can include answering questions, listening to concerns, establishing relationships, asking for feedback, and building brand awareness.  The most effective way to utilize social media marketing is to constantly be in touch with the conversation that is already happening about your brand, and responding to it in a sincere way.

There are multiple returns for social media marketing efforts.  In addition to achieving a wider reach for your content that results in more visits to your website, there are search engine optimization benefits.  Social media sites are now receiving top search engine listings so that even more people find your business when going to Google and other search engines to find your product or service.

So there is a plan for Social Media and there is a plan for Social Media Marketing.  Both plans should be worked on a daily basis.  There are optimal ways to do each, and we plan to cover that here on this blog.

Takeaway:   Social Media is sharing information online.  A business can participate by posting content in all kinds of creative ways to engage new people to the product or service that is represented – not to sell, but to use the social space on the internet to facilitate communication that will lead to sales.

Tomorrow’s topic is WHY Social Media.