Last Friday’s Social Marketing Creativity Coffee discussion surrounded the issue of generating a Return on Investment (ROI) from social marketing. This was a lively discussion regarding what companies are looking to get out of their social efforts and investment. Here are the thoughts and ideas that come from that discussion. It’s a long post, but that’s what you get when you have great conversation and great ideas.

  1. Social Marketing is like an industry trade show.
    • The point of having a "booth" at a trade show is not just about generating new business; it's also about communicating with your customer base. That's the same with social media engagement.
    • Like a trade show, you "never know what you're going to get" on social networks. You may know how many "attendees" will be there, but you don't know how many of those leads will be qualified, how many will convert into sales.
    • Good marketers have a process to move those conversations into leads, leads into customers, customers into advocates. (JitterJam does this, and more!)
  2. You need a social marketing strategy and implementation plan.
    • Determine what you want to get out of social marketing and your strategy to get there. Without these goals and strategies, you have no clear direction on what you want to accomplish or how to evaluate your success.
    • Don't use a lack of understanding of ROI as an excuse NOT to engage in social marketing. Use the strategy planning process to identify what value that social marketing can bring to your business.
  3. Instead of just focusing on ROI, look at the impact of your social marketing efforts.
    • Traditional ROI calculations just measure revenues and costs. Social marketing can have much greater impact on your business.
    • You DO need the tools to measure engagement, action, buzz, etc. across channels in order to see which messages have the greatest impact and which channels are the most successful for you.
    • Don't use a lack of understanding of ROI as an excuse NOT to engage in social marketing. Use the strategy planning process to identify what value that social marketing can bring to your business—deeper relationships with your customers, better customer service, higher customer satisfaction, more repeat sales (that may or may not be trackable), word-of-mouth influence and more.
  4. What is the impact of social marketing?
    • PR and reputation management. Social media is PR. Social marketing can have a significant positive impact and influence on brand identity and recognition.
    • Increased revenue. While you may not be able to attribute all the impact of your social marketing to specific revenue figures, in the case of promotional offers, make sure you have a mechanism throughout your value chain to track sales and a way to measure the impact of each social channel separately.
    • Community growth. Driving and building a community of your brand's "fans" can be a starting point for deeper engagement and relationships with your customers. This should be a goal in itself.
    • Communications with consumers. Social marketing enables direct conversations with your customers. It gives you a path to understand what your customers really think, what they are saying about you (regardless of whether or not you're listening), and how they feel about your products. It can help you quickly identify problem areas as well as new opportunities for growth and impact.
    • Thought leadership. Live your company's values through your social communications. Are you a green company? Share articles, links, photos, etc. about re-use and conservation. Be a thought leader in the community you serve.
    • Readiness. Engaging on the real-time web enables you to be ready to respond to issues as they occur. You have the mechanisms and resources to keep up on positive and negative chatter about your business. You can respond—in real time—to any crisis that might occur. Just make sure that you have already defined a crisis management process; any response will be public and may be publicized. If you're not engaged, you can't respond!

There's so much more we could list regarding the impact of social marketing on consumer-facing businesses as well as B2B companies. We'd love to hear from you. How has social marketing impacted your business? Has it been a positive experience for you? Please leave a comment and let us know!

Interested in joining us for our Social Marketing Creativity Coffee? Join us every Friday!

Need some help developing and implementing your Social Marketing strategy? JitterJam is now offering Advisory Services to help you get more out of your efforts.

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