How can we measure a company’s return on investments? How can you turn likes into sales?
While a corporation may integrate social media within their business planning or corporate goals employees need to buy in to this area, as we all know change is not easily accepted. Corporations now need to incorporate social media training into their employee’s development recognizing that this is a growing channel that will assist in the future growth of the company. The demographic range of employees within an organization is unfortunately one of the corporate barriers we must learn to face in this ever-changing technological age of growth.
The reality is there is currently a generation gap between those who have grown up with social media being the forefront of their lives and those who simply view it as a network of friends socializing on a casual non business platform. People are connecting on a global scale, something as simple as liking a brand on Facebook can influence the supply and development of a product produced half way around the world. Millions of people review products and services using platforms such as YouTube, voice their opinions in their personal blogs which then gets purchased online from another person who decides to read it. The influences of supply and demand are now far reaching than ever before.
Corporations are able to attain real time feedback about their products and services, whether they be positive or negative. This information is essential to product development and adaptation such as a competitors pricing, manufacturer’s quality and basic bottom line objectives. It can be best described as an intricate web continuously feeding off of each other which can be measured using analytical tools to monitor, record and implement decisions based on the traffic and data attained.
The lack of knowledge regarding this new frontier affects other areas of the organization. We can see a major difference between the companies who take the social media metrics seriously resulting in significant cost savings as well as time management as customer issues are resolved much quicker. The lifetime value of acquiring a new customer is drastically reduced. This new method makes relationship building and retention drives a much stronger customer satisfaction rating.
The major purpose of utilizing social media analytic tools is for the company to measure awareness, attitude and action/behavior change. Many companies are not aware of the various free, low cost and professional social media analytics and measurement tools or how to use them. Some examples of social media analytics are: Google analytics, radian6, export.ly, hootsuite, raw feeder, twitalyzer etc.
Google Analytics is the main one I have become familiar with. I would recommend this as a start to track website data like traffic, visitors, pages per visitor, and traffic sources. Most of the analytics tools offered can track a multitude of data, however they are not designed to track social media data. Fortunately, there are a few add on for your analytics software for Social Media Metrics. New metrics pulled into GA include: Digg, Sphinn, Mixx, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, Case-sensitive to the url and Yahoo inLinks.
The use of social media to share and engage with consumers is growing at an exponential rate. Any business would be ahead of the curve in incorporating a social media business strategy that takes advantage of this new channel of opportunities.
Lessons for others:
It would be profitable for corporations to have a sustainable social media strategy to get an edge in this rapidly growing field.
Web references:
GoREACT for Corporate Sales & Training YouTube
Social Metrics – Social Media Marketing YouTube
HOW TO: Track Social Media Analytics
Social Media Metrics Plugin for Google Analytics
How to Analyze your Site with Del.icio.us
Sphinn/ What’s Sphinn
Mixx Wiki
Reddit.com
StumbleUpon
Submitted by: Sarah Kalyan – SMBP Student University of Waterloo. To contact the author of this entry please email sarah.kalyan@hotmail.ca
If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.