SMX Advanced Session Synopsis: Proving Social Media's Value

Synopsis of the Proving Social Media's Value session at SMX Advanced. Written in real time format.

Benefits of engaging in usersupport forums
--drive traffic
--improve customer service
--test new product ideas/get feedback
--foster online community retention
--visibly provide support
--shows you care
--engage in significant discussions about your brand

Senior Management will always ask: What is the ROI?

--Many companies have "value" for a customer
---but some customers have greater value than others, example: promoters, neutral, detractors are types of customers. Promotors add customers, so have added value; detractors have a negative value.

Calculating Referral Economics:

Positively Referred x Number Referred x Conversion Rate = Referral Impact
78% 3.87 17% 0.5
(these numbers supported by research)
Interpretation: For every 2 "promoters", you will gain 1 referral customer.

Note that social media will not only engage and increase the number of promoters, but also will minimize number of detractors, especially if resolutions are provided to detractors quickly and publicly. Detractors can then become promoters of your brand.

Outreach - "Changing Perceptions"

-reach out to negative influencers
-turn their bad experience into a good one
-incentivize them to make positive noise

(public apologies can go a long way, and this is an example of changing a detractor to a promoter)

-send out coupon codes on variu networks (example: Facebook, Twitter)
-integrate with mobile: use sms texting to build your contacts
--Example: "Hotel Deal: Free Fridays at a Luxury Hotel. Text "special" to 12345"

The true value of social media is seen over time, although it can be tracked via dividing customers gained by social media investment. However, this is truly undervalued, as the present value of social media awareness and brand reputation is nominal when compared to the future value of these things.

--Brand Reputation Value: Priceless
Ex: "when I get married, I am going to honeymoon at your hotel"...person might not be getting married anytime soon, but that is a future customer, with a very low cost of acquisition.

Other ways to prove the value:

-Competitive Intelligence: assess the competition, see what your competition is doing out there
-Traffic is obviously one source of value
-Value can be had in terms of page views, retweets, diggs, votes, comments, links, etcetera.

-Tools like Knowem.com can check your brand across the social web and can register them for you
-leverage social media profiles to protect your brand in the search engines
-use social web to leverage conversations

-->Competitive Data very useful in selling social media
-->There is data is social media