How to Increase the Perceived & Real Value of Social Media

Spread it!

Email This

EngagementDb recently published a social media brand engagement report where they showed how different brands were engaged with the consumers that they served. The report talked about a direct correlation between consumer engagement and increased revenue. They said that the most active brands in social media increased revenues 18%over the past 12 months.

While the exact ROI for most organizations can be a little hard to determine, here are some things businesses could do to increase both the perception and real value of social media within their organizations.

To start things off your business needs to truly understand the available social media channels and the value they can bring to your brand. While the three most used social media channels are Blogs, Facebook, & Twitter - there are two things you should consider. First, don't just jump into all three because 'everyone' else is doing so; second - watch how you engage - if you mess up you can disengage people faster than you can engage new ones.

The best approach to starting or restarting things correctly is to educate your team (you have to include senior management) on the available social media channels, next seek input from your front line & your customers on the best available channels to engage, and then prioritize which one or 'few' channels your company is going to start with. Keep in mind there are quite a few available channels (here are seven to look at for social media)

To measure the success of your efforts - establish metrics for three things - Engagement, Revenue, & Profit. Make sure you publicize your successes within your company - it is going to keep your program going.

Measure Engagement by watching hits on your blog over time, or the number of associations you have on Twitter or Facebook. More importantly - measure engagement based on user feedback - i.e. don't measure on how many Tweets you put out, but on how many people actually 'listen.' You can actually drive Revenue using Twitter like Dell or some others. Social media can also be used to cut costs of engagement resulting in higher Profits. With engaged consumers you can build up on user generated content and also lower the cost of contact.

You have to be careful in how you pick the channels you wish to engage your consumers on. An important consideration in social media is to remember that it is not your voice but the voice of your consumer. So the key difference is engagement and getting your 'consumers' talking. Also, don't forget you have to be sincere & be in this for the long haul.

Social media is here to stay.