Business Case For Social Media

17Summits July 3rd, 2009

The Business Case for Social Media Your Guide to Social Media Success©

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Social Media DefinedApplied Social MediaThe Business Case for Social MediaMeasurementSuggested Next Steps

Appendix – 7Summits Overview

Agenda

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“Social Media” is a phrase that has been over-hyped, obscuring its definition and confusing its meaning with many other terms.

Social Media Defined

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Therefore Social Media is a set of technologies being used to accumulate and distribute information or data (content) to members of a community that have congealed around a common purpose.


S o c i a l M e d i a

Relating to human society and its

members1; of and pertaining to the life, welfare and

relations of human beings in a

community2

(singular medium) The storage and transmission tools used to accumulate and distribute information, or data1

1 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_(communication)

2 http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/social

Social Media’s more precise definition can be found by looking more closely at the original definition of is root words:

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So what are the predominant media that we are talking about?

There are a lot of categories of social media: Social Networks, RSS Feeds, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting, Widgets & Gadgets. These are some of the more well known ones.

There are a lot more: Search Engines, Social Book Marking Sites, Micro-blogging, texting is social, video sites, photo sites, travel sites, and now B2B networks are forming, mashups – a good example being showing flickr images over the top of Google maps.

We’ll take a quick look at the most often used media just to give everyone a good baseline of what they are and how businesses are starting to apply them. If you get all of this, just skip ahead.

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Social Networks focus on building online communities of people who have come together for a common purpose.

Social Networks started out as a means to share personal news, photos and status and are now moving on to become a preferred way for connecting global workforce. Many companies are creating brand-centered communities and actively participating in media where consumers spend time to help better understand their perspectives and needs.

Examples: Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and myPath

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RSS - most commonly translated as "Really Simple Syndication“ or ‘Rich Site Summary” – it actually consists of formats used to publish frequently updated information . Information like blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video.

The idea here is that these formats are somewhat standardized making is easy for them to be consumed in many places as well. This syndication aspect of the delivery is what differentiates RSS from other ways of sending and accessing this information. Imagine a feed like this providing updated company news and information – internal or external.

Examples: favorite blogs, CNN News, BBC, Mashable.com (very useful social media blog), Social Blizzard (coming soon)

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A blog – is a type of website that is really like a personal journal that gets frequently updated and is intended for the general public.

Businesses are using blogs to better establish their identity, engage consumers and do so in their preferred media: a lot of people are reading blogs!

Examples: Mashable, TechCrunch, Wifli.Wordpress.com

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Examples: Wikipedia; many topical wikis covering anything from art tutorials to adoption.

A wiki is a collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute or modify content, using a simplified markup language.

Business as using these to create collaborative websites, share best practices and as an important component of a community website.

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A podcast is kind of like a blog, but the content s made up of a series of digital files, mostly audio or video. Like blogs, these are released periodically and made available for download so that they can be listened to or watched on your computer, your phone or your iPod.

Examples: Audio Books, Learn A New Language, “Hidden Yellowstone”

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Gadgets originated from a term referring to “desk toys” like stress balls, puzzles and those little perpetual motion gizmos.

So a widget or gadget is a small web component that has a particular function – many are fun – and these now live on our computer desktop or inside our web browser.

Gadgets and widgets have made many of the platforms that we are used to using (like facebook) more fun and usable. Businesses are just starting to use gadgets to create persistent business monitors; to create directories of information that can be embedded in other sites thus increasing brand awareness; to provide updates on key data, news or events.

Examples: countdown timers, weather forecast, word of the day, guitar chord explorer, RSS News Reader, and so much more.

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Our Perspective

Social networks growth is strong across all segments & generations

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Our Perspective

Social network growth is strong across all segments & generations

Pro

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tent

Ability to define prospects

NINGFacebookMySpace

LinkedIn

14.2 million unique monthly visitors43 million registered users





Source: Compete.com, August 2009

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Number of Social

Networking Users Has

Doubled Since 2007!

Source: Forrester Research, 2009

Our Perspective

The number of social media users is increasing exponentially

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From eMarketer.com:

“In late 2008, MarketingSherpa surveyed social media marketers about the effectiveness of their practices. Large majorities rated social media marketing effective at influencing brand reputation, increasing awareness and improving search rankings and site traffic.”

Source: Emarketer - Social Media Best Practices, July2009

Our Perspective

• Influence brand reputation• Increase brand awareness• Improve SEO• Increase Website traffic• Generate Leads• Improve internal communications• Increase online sales

Integrating with social networks has many benefits

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The Point? Social Media is now a compelling channel for reaching consumers

Our Perspective

Social Media has established consumer reach that is just as compelling as other major advertising channels; and it is still growing while the others have plateaued or started to decline.

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Our Perspective

The social media landscape is vast and constantly evolving

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Our Perspective

Most brands’ focus is how to use social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube:

This is the wrong focus!

“How do we create a fan page on Facebook?”

“Which sites and tools should we be using?”

“How do I use Twitter?”

“Do we need to be on Twitter and Friendfeed?”

“We have several videos on Youtube, how do we get someone to watch them?”

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Our Perspective

The focus should be on prioritizing which social media are right based on what you’re trying to do. The questions that should be asked:

How do we increase sales and market share?

How can we better align innovation with market demand?

How do we providing a consistent customer support experience at a reduced cost?

How do we establish and maintain a positive online reputation?

How do we improve time-to-productivity for new employees?

How can we increase customer retention?

What audience are we trying to reach and what are our objectives with that audience?

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Our Perspective

. A Social Business Strategy is the foundation for successful social media execution.

Social Media can be applied to drive more activity from extending consumer awareness, to growing sales, to driving ongoing engagement

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The strategy that we develop with you will be used to drive awareness of your brand and its products through Connected Social Campaigns with a goal of driving site traffic and eventually loyalty and advocacy for you post sale..

Potential Customer begins their search for a new product or service online and discovers your brand and product line

Customer looks at a combination of ratings, reviews, discussions, blogs, UGC around your products which influence purchase

Your positive position in social, search, ratings & reviews influences customer sale via eStore, retail or dealer network.

A relationship has been formed with the customer Consumer advocacy has been achieved

Integrating all your efforts online is key to success

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You ask customer to join community, submit a product review and notify them of referral program

Awareness

Ongoing Engagement

Relevance

Involvement

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Conversion

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• Focus on Why to use Social Media, not How.

• Let business imperatives drive your use of social media, not just the technology itself.

• Social Media is an element of an overall marketing plan.

• Social Media should be applied with consideration for your core sales & marketing strategies: awareness, relevancy, conversion, involvement and ongoing engagement.

• Clearly define your audience and their preferred media.

• Listen and then act.

• Identify customer advocates and then activate them as a social influence for your brand.

• Measure your baseline and then measure and analyze your results to determine impact on behavior, sales, reputation, and overall ROI.

Our Perspective

Key Insights from 7Summits

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Agenda

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Applied Social Media

Client Stakeholders Organization Entities Involved

In Those RelationshipsRelationships

Companies have relationships with key stakeholders and there are many organizational entities involved in those relationships

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How does social media add measurable value to these relationships?

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MarketingCustomer ServiceSalesBrandingMarketing CommunicationsAdvertising


How does social media add measurable value to these relationships?

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GroundswellMany companies approach social computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed – a blog here, a podcast there – to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. Forrester categorizes social computing behaviors into a ladder with six levels of participation; we use the term "Social Technographics" to describe analyzing a population according to its participation in these levels. Brands, Web sites, and any other company pursuing social technologies should analyze their customers' Social Technographics first, and then create a social strategy based on that profile.


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Agenda

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The Business Case for Social Media

Marketing

HR

Lead Generation

Locating Expertise

PipelineDevelopment

AccelerateTime-to-Revenue

Customer-Driven Product Innovation

Knowledge Retention

Workforce AttractionTime to Productivity

Training and EducationConnecting & Engaging Workforce

Improving Generational Workforce PerformanceEmpowering Individual Productivity

Improving Retention Rates

Market Intelligence

Customer Awareness & Attraction

Multiplying Effectiveness of Campaigns

Building Brand-Centered Community

Increasing Customer Loyalty

Identifying Market Trends

Reputation Management

Monitoring & Engaging

Public Messaging

More EfficientInternal

Comms

ProvidingConsistent Support

Reducing Call Volume

Improving Self Service

Building Customer LoyaltyCompany

Business Imperatives

Value Levers

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Marketing Imperative: Increase Brand Awareness, Grown Sales and Take Market Share

– Market Intelligence– Identifying Market Trends– Multiplying the effectiveness of Campaigns– Increase Customer Loyalty– Building Brand-Centered Community

PR Imperative: Establish & Maintain a Positive Online Reputation

– Monitoring & Engaging– Online Reputation Management– Public Messaging through topics of interest

Customer Service Imperative: Providing consistent customer support experience at a reduced cost

– Providing Consistent Support (re-use knowledge)

– Reducing Incoming Call Volume– Lowering Support Costs– Building Customer Trust & Loyalty

Sales Imperative: Sales Growth

–Lead Generation–Expertise Location–Pipeline Development

Product Development Imperative: Align Innovation with Market Demands–Customer Driven Product Innovation (Aligning Innovation with Market Demands)–Accelerate time-to -Revenue–Driving Better Results from R&D Investments–Knowledge Retention

HR Imperative: Attraction, Engagement & Retention of Workforce–Employee Awareness / Workforce Attraction–Employee On-boarding / Time to Productivity–Training and Education–Connecting & Engaging Workforce–Improving Generational Workforce Performance–Empowering Individual Productivity

Where Can Business Value be Most Affected by Social Media?


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Lowering Support Costs and Incoming Call Volume. Live support is often the most expensive support activity companies provide. By providing an open environment in which support problems are exposed to other customers of your product or service, Social Business Software can dramatically improve your customer support team’s productivity. Because support requests are directed to a community and not an individual, a partner or another customer can often handle them, plus the resolution will be available to all other customers for reuse.

Examples of Value Levers in Social Media

Each Value Lever states a specific case for how value can be delivered, supported by case studies and a business case.

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Empower Individual Productivity. Too often, employees can’t access key resources when they need them, be they people or documents. Social Media can be leveraged to provide employees with a 360-degree view of conversations and activities across previously isolated information silos. As a result, they can easily access the right people and information to generate better results in less time.


Examples of Value Drivers in Social Media

Each Value Driver states a specific case for how value can be delivered, supported by case studies and a business case.

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Many business cases are still very anecdotal, however formal rigor and financial acumen are being applied to harden these.

Formal Business Cases

Impact of Value Levers

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Twitter ROI Case Study: Dell Generates $3 Million in Sales Utilizing TwitterFirst adopters of social media networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogging understand that their success can be measured and based on audience engagement, recognition, and involvement. Yet, Social Media’s Achilles heel, in the eyes of corporate decision makers who still utilize Web 1.0 analytics and measurement for their marketing, sales, and promotion efforts, is the lack of compelling ROI case studies: until now.Dell’s Twitter Strategy: ROI of EngagementThe Washington Post reported on Claire Baldwin’s article in Reuters “Twitter helps Dell rake in sales“:


Formal Business Cases

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Agenda

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Measurement

Social Media is becoming easier to measure with a host of tools available for both transactional measures and key insights.

Test, Measure, Learn

Measurement & Insights is core to a business-focused Social Media investment. Models that connect both conversations and activity on the web to your business performance are the fundamental tools that must be worked with. Baseline measures, along with agile test-measure-learn cycles allow you to adapt, grow, and improve.

Measurement should be setup with the idea of watching as your investment delivers tangible results.

Tools in this space have evolved beyond traditional web analytics to Listening Platforms that look for patterns in the conversations, identify emerging themes and identify the information that should be treated with the most importance.

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Measurement

ROI Modeling Breakeven should be in months, not years. You input cost, baseline measures and related assumptions into the activity-dependency models. Sensitivity-type analysis around the behaviors you are changing flows through the model and drives value calculations. Update your model as you evolve and continue to measure. You should be able to track your investment in a more meaningful way and understand what you get in return.

Web Performance & Analytics Most companies have the basics down: traffic and transaction measures but those leave out the best parts of the story. These ensure that the right data is collected and analyzed to provide insights on the value of your content and applications as well as your products and brand. You will learn what and how to measure, where your brand is being talked about, and the sentiment of those conversations (positive, negative, or neutral). You can also see how your competitors’ fair in those same conversations. With this information, you can create a social business strategy that really means something.

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Measurement

Behavior and Conversion Tracking Your content, your apps, your ads, your conversations: it’s all about changing or enabling consumer behavior. With the business-focused models presented here, you should be able to connect those behaviors to desired business value. These powerful stories are written in activity-dependency models. With those models, you’ll know what you need to measure to “see” how your investment changes consumer behaviors. Then, watching those behaviors, you can adjust your measures and improve your model to deliver more value from the channels and social venues that are working for you.

Optimization Strategies The social web is a fluid, dynamic environment that eschews outside control. Your best strategy is on-going measurement and adjustment. It is important to stay abreast of insights around new trends, new technologies, and new participation approaches that help you focus your investment on those behaviors that truly bring value. Test & learn will become a part of your vocabulary (perhaps your new mantra), and will transform your strategies to keep pace with social change.

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Agenda

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Suggested Next Steps

Determine Readiness - Considerations for Getting Started

• Internal Buy-in• Corporate Communications Policy• Audience and Objectives• Resource Availability• Content Availability and Strategy• Technical Infrastructure• Legal Implications

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Suggested Next Steps

Discover• Determine Readiness

• Develop a Social Business Strategy & Plan

Execute!• Select that Minimal Marketable Feature and get out there

Nurture & Adjust• Learn from your audience, adjusting your approach to better secure your

objectives with them

Launch & Interact• As results become measureable and benefits are evident, ramp up more

formal activation plans to gain scale.

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Agenda

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Who We Are: 7Summits is a new type of agency focused on bringing the best talent in the market to drive your business imperative(s) to a better end by leveraging social media where it makes the most sense.

Business Focus: Applied Social Media & Social Business Design.

Differentiation: Deep Marketing, and Social Media Expertise Combined with Strong Business and Financial Acumen. Our entire reason for being is to apply social media to drive measureable business value.

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Every day, our passion drives us to explore new areas of business and look for fresh ways to execute social media strategies where it makes the most sense. It all happens in an environment that inspires resourceful thinking and produces a synergy of results from a hand-picked group that lives and breathes our client’s business precisely like it is our very own.

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7Summits – Our Name

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Charles Sheldon pioneered the discovery of Mount McKinley, a place that now bears the name he chose for it: Denali. He brought such great purpose and passion to his efforts that he inspired a nation to preserve this place forever as Denali National Park. Charles Sheldon walked the path so that others could follow and share what he had learned. His passion for imparting his experiences was so intense, so focused that he refused to go to bed each night until he had documented the findings from that day – even after having fought his way back to camp through chest-deep, icy rivers and not arriving until early morning.

In the spirit of Charles Sheldon, 7Summits aspires to collect and disseminate the aggregate knowledge of “applied social media” so that the broader community can benefit from this knowledge. We are committed to work tirelessly as we guide our clients to apply social media to affect real movement in key operational metrics.

7Summits

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Social Business Strategy & Planning

Measurements & Insights

New Media Marketing Solutions

Tailored Social Communities

SEO & SEM Consulting

Business Integration Services

Rich Internet Applications & Components

Mobile Solutions

Our Solution Offerings

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DISCOVER EXECUTELAUNCH

&INTERACT

NURTURE&

ADJUST

Determine Readiness and create Social Business Strategy & Plan

Select a Minimal Marketable Feature and get out there!

Learn from your audience, adjusting your approach to better secure your objectives with them

As results become measureable and benefits are evident, ramp up more formal activation plans to gain scale.

Our Approach

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Our Launch Partners

For Content Syndication

Listen.Understand.Act

Social Business Software

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In the Vast Expanse

of Newly Evolving

Social Media, What Should You

Focus on First?

Your Guide to Social Media Success©

Business Case For Social Media

Documents

Transcript of Business Case For Social Media