7/13/2010
Social Media for Business – The Big Picture
We sat down with Brad Shorr, Director of Content Marketing at Straight North, to learn more about the way to measure social marketing efficacy. Brad brings more than 25 years of marketing, sales, and management experience to the Straight North team. With a lifelong passion for reading and writing, he has been an active and respected blogger since 2005. His firm, Word Sell, Inc. – acquired by Straight North in 2010 – was among the first to bring social media marketing concepts and strategies to the business community. A graduate of Northwestern University, Brad is a skilled SEO copywriter, social media marketer, and content strategist.
SN: If you told me four years ago that companies would be using social networks like Twitter and Facebook to communicate with their customers … I would’ve laughed at you. To what do you attribute this rapid – and meaningful – evolution?
Brad Shorr: There are a lot of reasons. First is that people in business, high-level executives, have been using YouTube and Facebook for personal use. In doing so they got more and more comfortable with the platforms and how they work. In being exposed to the websites, business people learn how they work and then are able to adapt dynamically to changes.
SN: So what started out as a way to look at goofy videos is now a powerful marketing tool?
Brad Shorr: Yes, definitely. Three to four years ago when I was talking to top clients they didn’t understand it. People aren’t going to spend precious marketing dollars on things they don’t understand. Somewhere in the last year or two it reached critical mass. Companies took notice of who was participating. They started seeing their competitors doing it.
SN: So now they are open to the idea. But for companies who are not open to the idea or who are new to social media – what advice would you have for them?
Brad Shorr: I would say that they should leave all preconceived ideas at the door. Before you jump into social media have a really good idea of what you are trying to accomplish. It is a good idea to be as specific as possible with objectives. You needn’t go in with just one objective but you also shouldn’t go in with 20.
SN: The word “objective” sounds a little, uh, subjective.
Brad Shorr: Okay, fair enough. Let me be more specific. The social media platforms are some of the best ways imaginable to reach your specific target audience. These networks are a great way to get your message out. Especially Twitter and Facebook. Companies use them to push content out to their audience. It could be new Web content or to tell them about the sale of a particular product. It could be information about internal happenings at their company. Or cool promotions. Another great aspect is the ability to have two-way conversations with customers and potential customers about products. To monitor what is being said about your product on the Internet.
SN: Okay, that is concrete. But I still kinda want to ask … ‘so what?’
Brad Shorr: You’re a tough audience. Let me say it this way. People want to do business with people, not faceless companies. If your company is competing with a company that has a sterile presence and you can establish yourself as being open it gives you a real advantage. When all things are equal people will buy from a company that has a blog and is on Twitter and is on Facebook – because that is what they are doing, too.
SN: That is really compelling.
Brad Shorr: Also, they can use social networks to gain specific insight into what their customers want. A formal focus group is very expensive and not always accurate. If you create a community on Twitter and Facebook, you’ll get more feedback than you may even want in terms of what people think about your products and services. That is great info to have. It isn’t free. But it is much less expensive and in some cases much more reliable. It is a pure way to determine customer sentiments.
SN: Interesting. What trends are you seeing there?
Brad Shorr: I am seeing a lot of companies using Twitter in customer care and tech support. It is very easy to monitor conversations on Twitter and to see who is talking about your brand. Then when someone says something negative, they will jump in and address that problem. Just a few weeks ago I was having problem with Comcast and was blogging about my experience – how I couldn’t get anywhere with them by calling or emailing – and lo and behold they reached out to me electronically.
SN: You mentioned earlier that this isn’t free. How can companies measure how much they will spend or their return on investment?
Brad Shorr: Dell is a good example. They have been using Twitter to let people know about sales and special products. I don’t know what they spent on the campaign but I do know that they received $1 million in sales from that campaign alone. Increased sales that they could track and measure.
SN: How else can companies track the efficacy of their social marketing campaigns?
Brad Shorr: There are all kinds of ways to track activity: we have the ability to track where traffic is coming from, where it’s going to, and every case is a bit different but there are tools that allow you to do that. Other tools track how many times their brand is being mentioned. Hootsuite is a good example. It is Web based and user friendly and intuitive. Like many of these tools, you can track Twitter conversations by keyword. By the entire Twitter database.
SN: Whooooaaaaa.
Brad Shorr: [LOL] A lot of those services are free, but it takes time to sift through and interpret the data. Some companies have a whole staff of people that do brand monitoring. See, if people start talking about your brand in a bad way it can go viral and have a real impact on your business. Smart companies jump into those conversations and try to address it immediately. They need to respond honestly and straightforwardly as well. Just like they would do offline.
SN: Okay, so what are the biggest things social marketing can achieve?
Brad Shorr: It can help in generating good qualified leads, creating brand awareness, driving more traffic to a website, and help with customer service. Blogging is helpful in creating links into your website, which is important for SEO purposes. Some companies will get involved with blogging mainly for the SEO aspects of it. With a blog you are driving highly qualified traffic to your site because as you put more and more relevant information in the blog you have opportunities to insert keywords and provide your customers with helpful information.
SN: Tell me more about that aspect – information – because people ultimately use social networks to share information.
Brad Shorr: Good point. People crave news online and they crave information. As traditional media outlets have gone down in popularity, bloggers who were once scoffed at, are now quoted as authorities in certain cases. If you take this down to the company level, your customers and stakeholders are going to think, okay this company blog is a great source of information. Maybe we will subscribe, and check in occasionally to check out products and take a look at what you are offering, and maybe we will buy something today. Without a blog or a social media presence, tell me, what is going to bring someone back to your site?
SN: Good point. I would say there needs to be a change – whether that is in products or information.
Brad Shorr: That is the challenge. Keeping people coming back. The nature of blogs is people subscribe to them, people tweet links to blog posts. They share links to Facebook. Millions of times a day. It is not that common for people to tweet a link to a static webpage. The newness factor is something that is important. The other important thing that relates to traffic is conversion optimization. As companies put together really great blogs they start getting blogs dominating search and it is great but when people get to the websites there aren’t any conversion zones. Hard for them to take the next step. Think of social media: social media, SEO, conversion optimization. Has the company has successfully put these three together? All social media content should be optimized for search. Tweet can be optimized. Facebook, too. There are blog specific search engines. If you are going to take the time to invest in a social marketing program and SEO, you really should be investing in conversion optimization. You need to have an action for people to take. And it needs to be a simple, one step action.
