Key insights into what you need to know to substantiate a business case for pursuing social media as a marketing channel. Plus 20 crucial questions to guide you through the various social media channels.

1. The First Steps to Building a Business Case for Pursuing Social Media Marketing
Initiatives
ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

2. Are You Ready?
Building a business case for pursuing Social Media Marketing initiatives just got a whole
lot easier. In 2009, Aberdeen Group produced a study on the ROI of Social Media
Marketing and found that Best-in-Class companies experienced...
 95% improvement in marketing effectiveness
 90% improvement in visibility into consumer-generated content
 80% improvement in ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment)
But can you make a compelling business case for social media for your business? Is
your company even ready to embrace this channel?
Seven (7) Key Questions
The team at ymarketing has assembled seven (7) key questions you need to ask of
yourself and your organization to evaluate whether or not you should pursue adding a
Social Media / Social Web Strategy into your marketing mix.
1. Why? Are you considering Social Media Marketing: for community-building
reasons, for the benefits to your website through natural search, for both, or for
other reasons?
2. What? Do you know the difference between Digg and Twitter? Do you know why
they're important? Do you understand how they need to work together as a part
of an overall cohesive strategy?
3. How? Do you know how to measure all of this? Do you know how to substantiate
a business case for pursuing social media as a marketing channel?
(These first three are shown as published on info.ymarketing.com/social-media)
4. Who? Do you know what percentage of the adult population is participating in
social media -- as creators, editors, commenter's; what the demographics are; and
why it's so important to understand the different audiences?
5. Does your company have a blog? How it is being used, updated, and how
many individuals within your company are publishing content? How is it being
received by your customers, prospects, etc.? Is your blog listed in the top 15 blog
directories?
6. Do you know the top 20 social media sites relevant to your business
and do you know how to create a presence, engage and take advantage of them?
7. Do you know what impact peer-to-peer recommendations and
referrals from friends have? Do you know what percentage of your traffic
comes from referrals? Do you recognize what impact these referrals have on
buying decisions and conversion rates? Can you measure this?
ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

3. The Aberdeen Group: The ROI of Social Media Marketing
(Available for Purchase - Recommended)
"Social media gives direct marketers an opportunity to keep
their fingers on the pulse of how consumers are responding–to
what extent current campaigns are successful, how they need to
refine campaigns over time and, ultimately, the business
outcomes."
- Jeff Zabin, Research Fellow, Aberdeen Group
• 50% of US online adults are content creators
• Over 75% are participating in social media in some form
• 1.2 million blog posts are created daily
• 83% of adults trust opinions of a friend/acquaintance who has used the
product or service
• One in three Internet users say purchase decisions are swayed by social
media content
"The benefits of social media marketing have
become increasingly clear and compelling, even
if the metrics for measuring success are still
evolving, and more companies are viewing
social media as a lead-in to a marketing plan as
opposed to an afterthought."
"Relative to traditional mass media buys, a
small percentage of which generate positive
ROI, social media marketing can be a cost-
effective way for a company to achieve some key
marketing objectives.”
"Building brand visibility and market
awareness by turning consumers into
advocates and / or inducing them to share viral
content that lends credibility and
extends the reach of a brand are good
reasons to launch a social media
marketing program."
The full Aberdeen Group report is available for purchase online at:
http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5639-RA-social-media-marketing.asp
ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

4. The Big Picture
Of course Social Media Marketing is just one important facet of a comprehensive
marketing strategy. Other vital elements of any online marketing approach should
include Natural Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Engine Marketing, Landing
Page Optimization and Word of Mouth Tracking and Optimization, at a minimum. For
that purpose, here are additional questions about Social Media and the areas mentioned
above - that may prove valuable to you.
20 Useful Questions
1. How do you measure, track and plan for social media, referrals and
word of mouth?
2. Do you have a social media sharing strategy in place? Do you make it
easy for website visitors to share your content via services like StumbleUpon,
Reddit and Delicious?
3. Do you understand the value of having your company’s content
promoted on Digg.com? Do you know how to enable site visitors to “digg”
your articles?
4. Does your business have a Facebook presence?
(a) If so, how many fans or members do you have? Do you have a strategy
in place to handle content, community building, and/or events?
(b) Are you using Facebook’s Advertising platform?
5. Does your business have a LinkedIn presence? In addition to the social
media marketing benefits, this presence also serves as an online business
directory.
6. Have you taken advantage of what directories like DMOZ, LinkedIn
and AboutUs.org offer for free? Do you have a Link Building initiative under
way?
7. Are you listed on other major directories like Yahoo! and ZoomInfo?
Do you understand the benefit of being a part of their directories?
8. Are you aware there are well over 200 directories that offer your
business an opportunity to be listed and create a link to your website?
Many have a free service, all pass SEO value, and most pass PR value to your site.
Are you interested in pursuing an inbound linking strategy involving directories?
9. Do you understand the difference and the importance between
quality and quantity of inbound links to your company’s website? Do
you have the tools and process in place to help you evaluate these attributes?
ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

5. 10. Is your website fully optimized for Natural Search? Even if you’re
utilizing paid search pay per click, are you getting all the free / natural traffic you
possibly can?
11. Are you familiar with what a 301 redirect is and how it impacts the overall
number of links attributed to your business? Do you have one in place? If yes, is it
pointed to your root (http:yourcompany.com) or your www.yourcompany.com
address, and why?
12. Are you familiar with the role of meta data, meta tags, meta descriptions
and anchor text and how they impact your business not only from a search
perspective, but from a social media / linking approach?
13. Do you know about the trends and analysis tools that are available at
no cost / low cost online from companies like Google and Facebook?
Are you interested in learning more?
14. If your company or organization has a blog, is it hosted on your
business domain (i.e. blog.yourcompany.com) or is all the traffic benefitting
someone else’s business (i.e. yourcompany.blogspot.com or
yourcompany.blogger.com)?
15. Are you aware that YouTube has become the 2nd biggest search
engine? Have you thought about the ramifications for your business? Are you
already taking advantage of online video? Do you have content on YouTube and
other video sharing sites today? Do you have an Online Video strategy in place?
16. Once you have video content, do you have plans to make that content
readily available to search engines – to be displayed alongside regular
search content (not just in YouTube)?
17. Do you know what percentage of your website traffic comes from
word of mouth / referrals? If so, how do you track this metric? Are you
interested in putting more formal/effective measurements in place?
18. Does your company do a meaningful percentage of its business
outside of North America? Are you familiar with the Social Media sites that
are most influential in each region in which you conduct business?
19. To what degree does your business rely on growth – new traffic, new
leads, new sales?
1. If B-to-B-focused: Does your sales team have a need for new, qualified
leads?
2. If Consumer-focused B-to-C: Are you in need of new sources of low-cost
traffic? Can your ecommerce site scale?
ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

6. 20. Have you considered creating widgets, gadgets and other online
applications or downloads? Are you curious on how you could use this
strategy in your business?
If you have questions or would like additional information on any of the topics covered in this
document, please feel welcome to contact us at www.ymarketing.com or by phone at
1.877.736.4321 (ext 716 or 712).
About ymarketing
Founded in 2002, ymarketing is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Southern California. We
implement integrated online marketing programs including affiliate, display, eMail, natural search, paid
search, blog and social media by utilizing best-of-breed analytical applications. Ymarketing is a Google
Certified Partner and AdWords Qualified Company, a Microsoft adExcellence Company and a Yahoo!
Search Marketing Ambassador.
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ymarketing ▪ 150 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321