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1. Is social media worth the effort?
PROFIT-Xtra, September 7, 2010
Your company could be gaining substantial indirect
monetization (unpaid for advertising value), improved
customer service and increased loyalty. But you would
need the internal baseline metric prior to launching the
program to know if there was an improvement.
On the other hand, 30% may reflect a significant waste
of time if an investigation concludes that your
marketing rep is busy but not effective. This is how I
would review the program to date.
There are three ways to measure social media:
1. Effective vs. busy: Is your marketing person
spending the time online communicating directly with
constituents, answering questions or giving
suggestions? If not, she’s spending her time doing
things that do not lead to social engagement with your
company.
2. What were the benchmarks for the program? If
service improvement was an objective, for instance,
Big Game Hunting, http://www.huntnewbiz.com/index.php, catherine@HuntNewBiz.com

2. what was the service level when you started, and has
customer satisfaction changed since then?
3. Indirect monetization can be calculated. If you
have a following of 5,000 people, for example, and it
would cost $2 per person for a direct mail campaign,
then the indirect value of your online reach would be
$10,000 (5,000 times $2).
Social channels, if you use them to distribute your
company’s promotional messages, are a lot like running
an ad in the Yellow Pages. It’s not the size of that
publication’s circulation that counts; it’s how many
people find you, take action and build relationships with
your company that gives you a return on invested time.
You may be asking how to use social media to
meet business goals. The four objectives it can
achieve are:
1. Improve search-engine rankings: Be found by
potential audiences—and not just in searches for your
company’s name or website, but in the words a buyer
would use. High-traffic specialty sites may be where
your audience does research. If you knew that to be the
case, you might not post content on sites such as
YouTube and Facebook.
Big Game Hunting, http://www.huntnewbiz.com/index.php, catherine@HuntNewBiz.com

3. 2. Get better business intelligence. Integrating
social-behaviour data collection with your own
database will yield insight on your audience’s
preferences around content and platform (public vs.
industry sites, for example). You'll be better informed
about how to get your audience to take action. Social
clues that show interest from users include
commenting, sharing material or opening a link.
3. Cross-reference content to the “take action” point
of your website. For example, if you have a coupon offer
posted on an industry blog, include a link back to the
redemption point so you can capture the incoming URL
for your lead-nurturing activities.
4. Take a “test-lab” approach to using social media.
Test responses to a variety of messages or calls to
action. Sharing and link open rates, for instance, will
give you clues as to which messages or calls to action
are more effective. The data will start indicating what
does and does not work so you can convert busy time
into effective time.
An employee’s time spent on social sites may generate
results that are worth tens and even hundreds of
thousands of dollars in value to your business.
However, without clear goals...
Big Game Hunting, http://www.huntnewbiz.com/index.php, catherine@HuntNewBiz.com