JitterJam® Social CRM

Show and Tell - explaining the rain game, by woodleywonderworks on Flickr. CC BY.

Much of social media is a giant game of show and tell. Whether users are sharing photos on Facebook or brief anecdotes on Twitter, they are, to one extent or another, doing the same thing they did when they stood in front of the class in elementary school to explain why they loved their new Transformer toy so much. Businesses engaged in social media can use this predisposition toward sharing and storytelling to discover new, valuable information on consumers. The key is to get directive.

What if, once a week, your business encouraged its customers to engage in a game of show and tell with some specific parameters? Here are a few examples:

• A performing arts center might encourage its patrons to describe the best concert they’ve ever attended, and then use that information to tweak and modify the concertgoing experience accordingly.
• A health-conscious food company might solicit its customers for their guiltiest culinary pleasures, then post healthier alternatives that utilize the company’s products.
• An outdoor supply company might ask its following about the one piece of camping gear that’s saved the day more than any other over the years, then highlight that item (and items like it) more prominently in their online store.

Yes, this is what businesses are doing every day when they ask questions on Twitter, on Facebook, and on their blogs. But by framing the question as a game, by calling back to an activity that many customers will remember from their childhoods, businesses can develop intelligence on their consumer base in a fun, unique, and far less overtly sales-driven way.

What do you think? Let us know, then get out there and have an amazingly fun Fun Stuff Friday!

According to five separate surveys cited by eMarketer.com, site traffic was the number one metric that marketers used to measure social media marketing success in 2009. But, as eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey wrote in his company’s report “Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media,” site traffic “on its own it cannot justify heavier investment in social media.”

So, what other ways are there to measure success in social media marketing? What about contact growth? A contact means more than an IP address in Google Analytics, after all.

I’m not just talking about a growth in Twitter followers or Facebook friends here, however (though that’s part of it). What you really want when it comes to contact growth is a growth in your contact database. Whether you manually input intelligence on your social media contacts or you use a marketing platform that ties directly into a database (like JitterJam), it’s essential that you’re bringing data on your customers into a place where you’re in control, and where data can be stored for the long term (something Facebook and Twitter themselves aren’t particularly good at).  You need to able to add communication channels, to add intelligence, and to segment your contact list. Only then will you be able to effectively turn those followers and fans into customers. And a high conversion rate, of course, is a metric that would certainly justify a heavier investment in social media.

What do you think? How are you measuring your success? Leave a comment below to let us know.