27. Image: Courtesy SXCH.hu Did you give something to your audience that enhances their life or online experience? Did you get something from your audience that can make your business better?
32. Thank You! Jason Falls Principal, Social Media Explorer Email: [email_address] Twitter: @JasonFalls Phone: 502.509.4763 Web: socialmediaexplorer.com socialmediaexplorer.com/newsletter Coming Soon ExploringSocialMedia.com Ryan Deutsch VP of Emerging Media, StrongMail Email: [email_address] Twitter: @rdeutsch Phone: 650.421.7124 Web: www.strongmail.com strongmail.com/socialmedia 14-Day Free Trial StrongMail Social Studio
Notas del editor
You Are A Social Media Marketer. If you’re here, you are doing it or want to. (Blogging, Facebook, Twitter, Podcasts, etc.) And if you’ve been reading up about social media you may think it’s a world of …
Social Media Is A World Of Happy Little Trees “ Participate in the conversation” “ It’s all about engagement!” “ Talk with us not to us.”
Well, conversations don’t ring the cash register Engagement alone doesn’t sell more stuff Gather in a circle and love everyone if you want, but that doesn’t ….
Move The Needle Your company, boss, organization is a business Businesses success is judged on one thing. How much stuff you sell! Social media marketing has to move the needle or guess what?
This will be you soon.
Eric Brown – Urbane Apartments Stopped traditional advertising in 2004. Switched to Paid Search. Started blogging in 2008. Turned blog over to residents and made it about the community around apartments, not the apartments. BUT TRACKED IT, MEASURED IT and proved it was working.
Recent conference call with a client of mine, his exact words were:
But What About The Hippies/Purists? They’re wrong … or at least only half right. We do want conversation, engagement, human-ness in our marketing. But we have to ….
Move The Needle Remember --- This is a business.
Business.com report: Social Media Marketing Best Practices: Question and Answer Forums Revenue – 42%; Web traffic – 61%; Prospect lead volume – 36%; lead quality 33% Engagement entries are interesting (prospects 57%; customers 50%) – Is this what the purists have been telling them, or do businesses really care about this?
Bazaarvoice – “CMOs Plan For Higher Social Media Measurability in 2010” By Sam Decker – CMO Bazaarvoice What’s the ROI of Social Media? “ DON’T KNOW!” Don’t know and “no” account for 45-60% of the answers in all except ratings and reviews.
But that same group is now attaching revenue to social media marketing in ways they never did.
So How Do We Move The Needle?
Stop being afraid to ask. The purists say you can’t. The public says you can.
Present clear calls to action! Wiggly Wigglers regularly presents calls to action that lead to their ecommerce portal. Town of less than 80 people – 105,000 worldwide customers. Much higher return rates than catalogs and direct mail pieces.
Indiana Spine Group – Calls to action all over … content helpful … one client can mean thousands of dollars to them. Convert 5-6 a year and you’ve paid for it in multiples.
Dell Outlet – NOW 6.5 MILLION IN SALES! WTF?
Naked Pizza interacts, but also sells. Has sustained a 20 percent sales level derived directly from Twitter.
Dollar General – Third quarter 2009 sales jumped 13 percent (Overall sales … many factors.)
Aeropostale – Third Quarter of 2009 – Overall sales up 18%
Remember The Merit To Soft Metrics Branding, Awareness, Impressions Traffic, Time on site, Comments, Interactions, ReTweets Friends, Followers Email subscribers, RSS subscribers
About Engagement Some think of it as giving (purists view and not wrong). But if you ask, “Did you get something from your audience that can make your business better?” and can answer yes, you can make a case even if you didn’t move the money needle
The philosophical approach preached by the purists is necessary to PROVE you are GENUINE and have the right INTENT.
But don’t just be a hippie … this is a business. Plan. Measure. Prove!
Strategic planning 101 Goals – Objectives – Strategies – Tactics Increase online sales – Drive $5,000 of online sales from Facebook calls to action by Dec. 31, 2010 Develop buy one-get one for a friend app to give Facebook fan base purchase and share opportunity Hire developer, solicit feedback from Fan base on purchase application, promote application, etc.