You are here: Home / Archives for Social Media

How to Make Money with Social Media

March 25, 2011 By Sarah Kay Hoffman Leave a Comment

One of the best sessions I went to at SXSW was, “How to Make Money with Social Media” with Jamie Turner. (After the session I downloaded his book on it for my iPad2; it’s a work in progress that I’m so excited to hammer through.)

Jamie’s session was on Social Media ROI. Everyone wants to know about it, everyone needs to have it, and yet very few are practicing and proving it. Let’s start with a few slides from Jamie’s presentation:

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value - Jamie Turner

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value 2 - Jamie Turner

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value 3 - Jamie Turner

These slides are practical, helpful and very matter-of-fact. They prove that there is a way to calculate ROI. This puts it into simple terms, terms that any marketer should be able to understand and comprehend.

After leaving Jamie’s session that day, I began to think even more about ROI and Social Media. Anyone who says there is no way prove or calculate it is wrong. Where there is a will, there is always a way. But what’s really important here is that word, “will.” To me, the “will” is the what/how:

  • What are you trying to measure? What are you trying to track? What are you trying to prove? What is the bottom line goal?
  • How are you measuring? How are you tracking? How are you ultimately going to prove? How are you going to arrive to your bottom line goal?

We don’t land upon the ROI at the beginning. The ROI is the outcome, the measurement that takes place on the back end. The time, investment, effort and work happens in the beginning. But before we dive into time, investment, effort and work we must understand what we want to prove in the end.

Think about what ROI means to you:

Once you determine what ROI means to you/your brand, put those KPI’s/metrics in place from the beginning. Determine how you will measure in the beginning, middle and end. Make sure you know: What is your beginning? Middle? Ending? Do you have them?

Clearly, there are a ton of questions with ROI. Just as with traditional marketing and advertising it took some time for the measurements to be put into place. But it has been done. No one runs any traditional campaign sans-numbers. But take it one step at a time. Start at the beginning with the end in mind, and figure out the clearest path to measure along the way.

I found this presentation from Stefanos Karagos this week that got me even more excited about ROI. Hope you will enjoy it, too!

Social Media is Dead. Long Live Social Media ROI

More to come! Thank you for sparking so many thoughts & ideas, Jamie!

Filed Under: roi, Social Media, sxsw Tagged With: , , , , ,

We are Not Listening

March 1, 2011 By Sarah Kay Hoffman 2 Comments

We hear. But do we listen? Call yourself a Community Manager, Marketing Manager, Social Media Manager, Social Media Strategist or Chief Executive of the Social Enterprise. But where and who is the person actually listening?

Lalala I'm Not Listening
Photo provided by David Goehring

I view hearing as just that – picking up sound and filtering it out one ear to the next and subsequently left floating in a random place. I view listening as hearing then processing then placing and storing and finally analyzing and acting. Listening is a proactive approach.

Give yourself a fancy schmancy “social” title, but if you are not listening know that your title is arbitrary.

We have been given platforms to directly communicate with potential customers and consumers, but when we utilize them for due diligence and hearing only, we miss out on a huge potential for not only building relationships and connecting IRL, but we also miss out on advancing the business bottom line.

Example:

The business “social” interaction = A question to twitter followers on their favorite product in your business category.

  1. You sell cereal so you ask, “What’s your favorite cereal topper for yogurt?”
  2. People respond with answers such as, “Cheerios, granola, gluten-free cereal.”
  3. Again, you do your “social” interaction due diligence and converse back with them about their answer(s)
  4. Conversation is over.

Nice work? Not so much! You heard, you interacted, you left. Good start. The end.

But what if you truly listened? How might this benefit them and your business? Let’s go through my listening cycle mentioned above:

  1. Hearing (see the former)
  2. Processing ->Think about what those answers mean. Figure out if there are responses you had not thought of. This most likely requires pulling the information from a monitoring platform.
  3. Placing & Storing ->Categorize the answers. Place them in an excel document. Store them for future reference.
  4. Analyzing & Acting -> Analyze on the question findings. And finally, take action at some point.

When you do this and you actually listen, you will get to the action portion. “Action” might mean connecting with them on a deeper level on a different day, or it may mean a targeted coupon, discount or product for the individual. Regardless, it means that because you listened, you are providing value for them and your business.

How has listening helped you, your customers, your business and your “social” interactions?

Filed Under: Community Management, Social Media Tagged With: , ,
« Older Posts