Social Media Begins Here

Both business and small retail buyers are leveraging the power of social media as a critical step in the customer decision-making process, elevating online word-of-mouth far above advertising and traditional marketing as a trusted source of relevant information. 

As a result, a growing number of companies are exploring and embracing social media opportunities.  Business blogs are on the rise, so are podcasts, wikis and customer forums. There are over 300,000 companies with a presence on Facebook. Social media options are growing so rapidly that it is often overwhelming and creates a certain level of fear, uncertainty and doubt within marketers.  But there are a few fundamentals for an effective “best practices” approach to social media that spans all technologies and markets. 

Step one:  Before you start, establish clear business objectives and metrics. 

What surprises me is how many blogs and podcasts or even Facebook groups and Twitter sites are started as an executive pet project.  That may relieve some pressure to demonstrate ROI, but as a marketer responsible for social media initiatives, you should never move off the starting mark without clear and measureable business goals. 

Measurability doesn’t always mean revenue or market share, but that’s always a good place to start.  Are you hoping to directly influence sales? Are you trying to build brand awareness among a certain demographic? If not, how can you measure the value of your social media program against a specific business objective? 

By taking an additional step, connecting the metrics associated with social media content and its relevance to the consideration processes within the purchase funnel, you can use the same tools you have in place now for measuring advertising and marketing effectiveness to assess the net impact of social media on your marketing program.  Remember, every C-level manager wants to know the ROI.

Many of our clients are embracing social media tools to become their own publisher of relevant information to their customers, or to reduce customer service costs by enabling peer support through online forums.  Other companies are replacing expensive focus groups by conducting market research online. 

If you’re focusing on building awareness and generating leads, the available metrics are actually much better than metrics currently available from advertising or public relations programs.  You can measure RSS subscriptions and page views, and you can even measure your influence on market conversations by tracking inbound links to your social media site, and clicks to your e-commerce site. You can also monitor comments on company blogs or increases in the company being mentioned on Twitter.         

Before you start a social media program, tie your social media objectives to specific business objectives that drive improvement, and identify not only your choice of social media channels but also the metrics that will indicate success within those channels.  Then-and only then-use social media properties to build and engage with your audience.

In my next post I will tell you why as a marketer embracing social media you need to refrain from bringing old skills to a new game.

Tags: best practices, Bob Maples, communications, maples, maples communications, marketing, objectives, orange county, PR, public relations, relevant content, social media, social media best practices, Steps