With the tight budgets of companies still in this economic light, there is a measure of success put on every campaign, whether that is social, search, media buys or direct sales. The guys in charge want to know they are getting something for their money. With things like PPC, media buys and direct sales, they can get a very clear picture of what they got.
If you spent $1,000 on PPC and received 1,000 clicks to your website, which resulted in 100 sales, you can easily see if the campaign was successful. The same application can be taken to your sales team and media buys, if you have the correct tracking in place.
But what about social media?
- What is the ROI of having a new blogger mention your company?
- How can you measure a Tweet in terms of its value to your company?
There are some great companies that do social analytics, and they do it well. This post is not about analytics. It is about motives.
The reason you are having a hard time justifying finding a value in a Tweet is because you are not ready to be in a social media campaign, or using social media for your company. Doing it just to do it, is no longer a reason to be involved. If you have brought someone in house to manage your social efforts, or if you have contracted a social media consultant or marketing firm, you need to discover the direction and the value to your organization that social media can bring.
When putting together a campaign for a large Fortune 500 company, they wanted the glitz and the shininess of social media. The problem was that these efforts had no implication to their bottom line, they did not open up communication between the product and the consumers and there was no data to be collected.
Let’s look at some reasons to start a social campaign:
Use expertise to provide value to your customers and potential customers.
Your company has some type of specialized knowledge that can be used to help improve the lives of the people that need this information. Creating a blog to talk about these issues, teach people things and give them a reason to learn more about you and your company is a great place to start with social media. In this instance you are talking about things you know inside and out and thus puts you into the position as the expert. The goal here is to use an inviting tone and create a conversation around the topics. Coming off as a know-it-all will only shun potential customers away.
From here you can have them opt-into a newsletter or customer list to receive deals on service, extra special tips and even free consultations (depending on the business). This creates an ROI for your campaign and brings in new customers into your funnel.
Give your customers and fans a voice.
This can also be called crowdsourcing. The best way to learn what your customers want or need is to ask them. Social media gives you a platform to display their voice and give them a chance to tell their story. This can be done by aggregating feeds onto your site, asking for guest posts and creating fan pages on social networks.
Using this method you can improve the quality of product development, create case studies and testimonials and have go-to consumers to test your new products – not to mention that they will tell friends and family that they were featured on your site.
To improve customer service.
Social media gives us something that search and Google cannot. An instant voice of praise and an instant voice for complaining. It’s the nature of the beast that when people spend money, they expect to be blown away. If they don’t, they complain. Instead of talking at the dinner table, they now have Twitter, blogs and Facebook status updates. All updated on their laptops, at work and even fast – on their mobile phone.
Use social search to reach out and make the customer experience better. The old adage of keeping current customers vs. acquiring new ones is very true in the social space. Ask Motrin. Ask the airlines.
Monitor your brand, your competitors and your influencers and play a role in keeping them happy. Mange their expectations and you will see a great ROI.
To increase sales
There is nothing wrong with using social media to increase your customer count and increasing sales. If you are going this route, be sure to create a campaign that is focused on driving leads, following up and delivering a great experience. One idea may be sponsored blogging through a company like Izea. Izea matches bloggers and companies and provides a marketplace to have your message shared on hundreds to thousands of blogs.
Another idea is to guest post. Drive traffic through your expertise while leveraging another’s audience.
They key here, with any of these “reasons” is to stay transparent and focus on the goals of your campaign. There is so much out there to get lost or create distractions for your company. If you are going to spend the money and the time you need to have goals, have road maps and create a plan to move your company in the right direction.
What reasons do you have to start a social media campaign? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
This post was written by Greg Rollet a social media and music marketing consultant from Orlando, FL.
