Originally posted on ContextOptional.com.
At Social Media Camp (part of the multi-city Social Media Week), a number of presenters (including our CEO, Kevin Barenblat) tackled the topic of scaling and measuring social media, while building engaging brand presence through conversation and interaction (via games, contests, etc.). Maria Ogneva of Biz360, Rick Klau of Google, Sudha Jamthe of PayPal and Jamie Shiller, spoke to one of the many interesting topics surrounding social media: Metrics. After all, if you’re doing it (engaging with customers through social media), you SHOULD be measuring it.
Let’s start with the statistics.
- Over 1.5 million pieces of content are shared solely on Facebook every day.
- There are more than 350 million active users on Facebook
- There are more than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
- More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
- Facebook Pages have generated more than 5.3 billion fans
- Companies using social media as a whole have seen a rise in sales of 18 percent on average
- 78 percent of consumers trust recommendations from their social graph
It is apparent that social media has turned into a hub for consumers. So, what’s the cardinal rule? Go where the consumers are. Whether or not you are participating in social media, your customers are talking about you, as Maria pointed out. She asked an important question: Do you know what they’re saying about your brand?
The rise of Facebook and other social media outlets can sometimes be scary for a brand. After all, Facebook (and other social networks) are an open forum for people to say whatever they want about what your brand represents, offers, or doesn’t. That’s opportunity calling. It’s an opportunity for brands to guide the conversation, provide customer service, answer questions, really interact with the consumers that are turning to social media for guidance.
Ok, so how do you engage? Where? With whom?
If you haven’t already, create a fan page for your brand. This will help keep all the comments related to you in one place. From the page, you are able to respond to their suggestions or questions and direct the conversation. By doing this, you are able to rectify possible negative situations and keep consumers happy and coming back.
Post updates, offer exclusive deals or coupons, provide “inside” information. This special information will maintain your fan base and will increase your interactions with the consumers. You already know there’s value in creating relationships with your customers.
While engaging is the key to reaching consumers, understanding them means analyzing their interactions. Social CRM is the new notion that everyone is still trying to define. Fundamentally, it is a system to track your social media activities including reach capabilities and gains associated with social media influence. There are services such as bit.ly that provide insights on how frequently links you post are clicked on. Facebook has also revamped their Insights and are now including number of impressions per Page. There are also various services to help analyze your influence on Twitter. The “proof is in the pudding” and these programs will do nothing less than prove that social media is where your brand will find success.
