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Social Media ROI Series Part 4: Relationship Building

We are all familiar with the business motto: ‘A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us an opportunity to do so.’

                                              

This motto has served many businesses in understanding that at the center of their operations is the customer. They (customers) determine the growth of a business. That is why organizations spend a fortune in recruiting new customers and still work round the clock to keep the old ones.

Knowing this, businesses then try to find ways to ensure that they build a formidable client base: which can be achieved through good customer relations. What businesses will realize is that social media can aid in cultivating good customer relationships, which will then lead to sustainable sales ROI.

“Delivering outstanding service [through social] creates impassioned advocates and can serve as a powerful marketing weapon for companies,” according to Jim Bush, Executive Vice President of American Express World Service, in a company press release. 

“For example, consumers who have used social media for service in the last year are willing to pay a 21 percent premium at companies that provide great service. They also tell three times as many people about positive service experiences compared to the general population. Ultimately, getting service right with these social media–savvy consumers can help a business grow.”  He adds.

Jim's testament, further proves the value of building relationships on the social web. On that note, social media delivers the following benefits:

• Customer Loyalty
• Brand Advocacy
•  Intent To Buy

Customer Loyalty

This is a result of consistently providing positive emotional experience, physical attribute-based satisfaction and perceived value of an experience, which includes the product or services.

According to beyondphilosophy, to build customer loyalty, customer experience management blends the physical, emotional and value elements of an experience into one cohesive experience.

It is said, retaining customers is less expensive than acquiring new ones, and customer experience management is the most cost-effective way to drive customer satisfaction, customer retention and customer loyalty.

Not only do loyal customers ensure sales, but also they are also more likely to purchase ancillary, high-margin supplemental products, and services. Loyal customers reduce costs associated with consumer education and marketing, especially when they become Net Promoters for your organization.

Brand Advocacy

The big and famous brands use brand advocates:  people who talk favourably about the brand and pass on positive word-of-mouth  messages to other people.

One thing a small business owner should know is that brand advocates are just as important to a small business as they are to the bigger corporations out there. People like to buy from companies or people that they know and trust, and they tend not to buy from those they do not.

However, how do you build that trust, particularly online? How do you get customers to come to you without spending a lot of money on advertising? By setting up a social site, and sharing topics that are of interest to your target audience.

Intent to buy

This is the ultimate goal of all business relationships. Yes, a business will feel good having a cohort of loyal customers. Having them (brand ambassadors) sell your business name, services and or products to their peers. 

However, building a relationship to the point that customers desire your products and or services and eventually decide to act on their desires, is the ultimate ROI.

For a business to walk the journey from building relationships and converting page visitors into loyal customers all the way to repeat buyers, takes good relationship building skills. Social media has provided a platform for which we can spend less, reach many people, and establish a connection. One that would eventually lead to sales. 

By monitoring the sales metric, you are able to quantify the value social media is bringing to the table. Understanding ROI helps us stand firm, and set our eyes on the prize.

If you missed by previous post, read it here.

Social Media ROI - Marketing Statistics

Marketing Statistics

Glad you could join me in this part 2 series. Hoping that part 1, proved valuable. I would like to hear from you on that. Today, lets look at some other ROI model.

Do you know that most organizations socialize their operations solely for marketing purposes? This happens to be the most important part of any social media program: thus the famous social media marketing discipline.

Then, what should you be on the lookout for? In as far as marketing statistics go brands should measure:

• Reach and awareness
•  Marketing equivalency

Reach and awareness

Find any social media strategy and you are bound to find, increasing brand awareness neatly written down as a goal. Brands (all) want prospective customers to know they exist. And not only that, but their ability to solve their (customers) day-to-day challenges. It is believed that the more people get to see or hear something about your brand, the more the likelihood of them seeking your brand’s services/products when a need strikes.

In the social realm, reach refers to the number of people who have seen your post. And just so you know content is what drives social media reach. Facebook’s algorithm takes your content and feeds it into your fans/followers newsfeed. The quality and freshness of your content determines if it will be seen or disappear into the content abyss.

Assuming that all factors are kept constant, then the total number of people who see your post, equals your social media reach.

This metric is categorised into paid and organic. According to Facebook, organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. Paid reach on the other hand is the total number of unique people who were shown your post because of ads. This implies that when you feel your content or page is not getting the desirable organic reach you set out for: you can always go the paid way.

Unfortunately, a study from Social@ogilvy explained how we are fast approaching the end of organic reach. And, true to their prediction: today before your content gains the traction it needs, you have to really…really offer value in every piece of content. Good news, you have a reason to explain your spend: paid reach.

Be careful not to lose out. Yes, you can get all the reach you want and in return awareness. But will you be pushing the brand goals forward? If you pair reach with key goals such as lead generation, you add value to the whole metric. Thus, reach in themselves do not count for much.

Marketing Equivalency

According to Liveworld, ‘Marketing equivalency ROI should reveal how social media costs compare to those of other media, ideally demonstrating that social achieves its goals more efficiently than other spend.’

In his book, Social Media Handbook, Peter explains how we can determine marketing equivalency. Simply measure your social reach and ask yourself how much money you would spend to reach the same number of people using traditional media.

Consider this: suppose a social media program runs 300,000 to reach 1 million people with 60 million impressions. You might calculate that it would cost 4 million to get the same results through advertising.

This is the value of calculating this equivalency. Once you calculate a campaign’s marketing equivalency ROI, you can go to your CEO and say, “Instead of spending 4 million on traditional marketing on that campaign, let’s spend 300,000 doing it through social channels, save a few million, and increase our overall social media budget!”

At the end of the day, companies are looking to save costs but achieve the same results. If you can prove value through minimal spend then what will prevent the management from giving you all the backing you need?

Brands spend a fortune on ads that might just not be as effective as social media programs. In addition, as all marketing objectives aim to drive more business, then why not be on the lookout for this metric.

What is your biggest challenge in as far as marketing statistics are concerned?

Social Media ROI

Social Media Statistics

Perhaps by now you are wondering, ‘I have a social media program going, now what?’ You have every right to think so. Convincing management to permit the launch of a social media program is no mean feat. More so, when they have pumped money to keep it afloat: pay for the team and other social media related costs. You just need to prove value.

Be warned though, some will be waiting for you to fail for them to pull the rag under you. We will not let them. By identifying how to spend the money and what to expect, usually referred to as Return on Investment (ROI) they will wait, and wait. Meanwhile, you will be smiling.

Contrary to what you have been told, social media can be measured. As social media was starting out, no one knew how to measure progress. A dark cloud hang over us in as far as knowing if your program was succeeding and or failing. In appreciation to those who were courageous to march forth amidst the uncertainty, today we have ways of telling success from failure (and I use failure, loosely.)

Therefore, what will you be on the lookout for? In his book, Social Media Handbook, the author Peter Friedman, writes about five social media ROI models (which will form my blog post series). In this first post, we will look at one of the models: social media statistics.

In this ROI model, we will be on the lookout for:

• Fans
• Likes
• Engagement

Fan Metrics

Through what social@ogilvy call ‘fanning’ this is when, you get people signing up for a connection with you on social media and or liking your facebook page.

This is the metric many managers and or directors, watch out for. You launch a corporate page today and one month down the line, they expect to see 1000’s of fans on your social sites. Starting out with this expectation can be detrimental. This metric might indicate you are not doing anything, when below the surface you are paddling like crazy.

As much as we all like to get millions of fans/followers/subscribers, it is pointless to center your entire social universe on this metric.

‘Building your customer audience is important, of course, but just building these numbers in themselves yields a vanity metric.’ – Peter Friedman, CEO LiveWorld. It cannot be said better than that. You are right to get excited about the entire fanning process, but aim for something better. But take note of how you are doing in as far as this metric is concerned.

Engagement Metrics

This is where all glory lies. However, be warned, it is not easy. Like my high school Principal used to say, 'Good things are expensive.' To relate: in order to reach reputable levels of engagement you will need to really invest resources (money and time).

That said, imagine you have almost a million fans. How do you get them to comment on a post, share their opinions, and or refer your products and or services to their close relations? This is the end game we all should strive to achieve.

This metric points to the levels of commitment your audience has to your brand. Moreover, someone who shows this level of commitment is sharing and or spreading the word to others. Better yet, and this is good news for sales, they may be buying from you.

Mr. Friedman says, ‘Liking a comment is good. Sharing or re-tweeting it takes more effort and is a statement that the user thinks the comment is worth the attention of others. Commenting is the best, because that takes more energy and time and suggests the person is truly engaged, mind, and hopefully heart.’

Well, how do you tell that you are hitting this metric? By looking at retweets, likes, shares, talking abouts, and comments. For you to make their social media experience worthwhile to merit the engagement you desire, you need to curate content that they will care about. Stop being egocentric in as far as content curation and publishing is concerned. Ensure your content centers on them, and not you. I mean, they are sharing their social presence with you: and you (brands) are many. Try not to waste their time.

Social media statistics, will tell when we are doing something right. And when we are doing something wrong. In both cases, we can know whether to revise our strategies or continue doing more of what we are doing. It will suffice to have this written down under goals when starting out but make a point of emphasizing the importance of engagement, and not likes.

So next time, be on the look out for these metrics. But know the value of each.