The majority of companies we talk to still aren’t effectively and/or adequately using social media to build awareness, create sales pipeline and drive both loyalty & engagement with their customers.
The opportunity is there, of course, as are countless case studies and best practices. But the problem isn’t the opportunity. I’m convinced now that the problem is in how the channel is sold internally.
Too many marketers talk breathlessly about the number of followers they can get, or the retweets they can generate. They talk about metrics that matter to people who may already understand social media, and fail to resonate with those who don’t speak the language.
If you want social media to be prioritized and budgeted for in your organization, you need to speak the language of your decision-makers. And 100% of the time, this can be done by translating social media value into business metrics, objectives and priorities that the company already has.
For example, social media can be justified via:
- Scalable, cost-effective awareness growth (measured by branded search increases, trackable inbound traffic from social channels)
- Search engine ranking improvement (direct tie between social & search now, measured in direct pagerank improvements on key nonbranded terms)
- Online reputation management (mitigate and reduce impact of negative mentions, reviews, etc.)
- Competitive intelligence (real-time tracking of competitor updates, changes, new directions, etc.)
- Increased customer satisfaction (lower-cost touchpoints and issue resolutions, higher-touch engagement)
- Prospect engagement & sales conversions (direct pipeline contribution, weighted & attributed conversion velocity)
In other words, take the social media out of it. The end-result you’re seeking has nothing to do with the channel or the means.
Start with the outcome, get your decision-makers nodding their heads, then work back to how you get there. At that point, you can also make the case that these business objectives can be achieved far more efficiently and cost-effectively with social vs. more traditional means.
