Social media began to be prevalent around 2005. Today, social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are prevalent among all age groups, although they began with a focus on young people as their main audience, to keep in touch. Today, though, corporations, too, use these sites to improve customer relations. As of 2009, social media has begun to revolutionize the way corporations are managing customer relations altogether.
According to IT research and advisory company Gartner, by 2010 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be using social media in some form as a way to improve customer relations. That's the good news. Gartner also posits that over half of the companies using social media for this function will do it wrong and actually harm customer relations. Gartner suggests that companies focus their analysis on customer online buying in order to offer a direct calculation of return on investment in terms of sales and customer loyalty coming through social media sites.
Gartner says that there are four steps businesses need to pursue to successfully use social media to manage customer relations. The first step is clearly defining the purpose of the social media initiative. Second, they must be willing to give up some degree of control over the medium, because the public wants some degree of ownership of the relationship as a reward for participating.
Third, companies should focus on rewards for customers that participate in social media. For example, they may set up venues whereby participants can rate contributions or information on the site, vote, and so on. Fourth and finally, companies should invest in having staff in-house who specifically set up social media customer relations as an initiative. This should never be done as just "something to try." Instead, if companies are truly going to try social media as a means to improve customer relations, it should be done seriously, with staff and ancillary staff devoted to it as required.
Social networking has really changed prospects' and customers' behavior, unequivocally. Gartner states that these customers no longer fit demographic profiles such that demographic measurements are entirely adequate or accurate. This is true even though demographics are the usual means companies measure customer relations' effectiveness by.
When it comes to your company, you're not going to want to invest a lot of time or effort in such an undertaking without knowing if it will pay off in terms of driving quality traffic to your company's website.
Non-linear Creations did a one-year study of the effects of five social media sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Stumbleupon) on their own home page. After a year, it was determined that social media sites drove about'% of their site's visitors from the referring sites in aggregate.
Of the social networking sites that drove traffic to business sites, Non-linear Creations determined that by far, two sites, LinkedIn and Facebook, did the best in terms of performance. That's important, but it's not everything. You also have to consider conversion rates. Non-linear Creations measured the conversion rate by determining those visitors that had downloaded a white paper, contacted them by phone or email, or subscribe to their newsletter or blog. When considered with these parameters, with "real prospects" actually being driven to their site, LinkedIn performed the best. It was in fact determined that traffic would convert much more frequently if it came from LinkedIn than it would if an average visitor was involved. In fact, other social media sites performed below average.
There's no guarantee that Linkedin will give your company the tangible results that Non-linear Creations got. It probably depends on what type of business you have. It is not quite understood what the less tangible benefits are of reaching customers online in a way that makes them feel as if the brand is listening and cares enough to interact in the way they desire. One of the things people dislike about customer support call centers is their anonymous feel. It keeps them from feeling a sense of relationship to the brand. So far no obvious downsides of using social media for customer service, so it would seem to be in any company's best interests to use this form of outreach.
It certainly isn't hard to create accounts on social media sites. The hard part is in actually interacting with customers on them, listening to them, and analyzing your online visitor numbers to see which social media sites give you the most return on investment in terms of online sales or some other metric. At that point you'll have to determine how much effort to put into making under-performing social media referrers more effective. - 32606
According to IT research and advisory company Gartner, by 2010 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will be using social media in some form as a way to improve customer relations. That's the good news. Gartner also posits that over half of the companies using social media for this function will do it wrong and actually harm customer relations. Gartner suggests that companies focus their analysis on customer online buying in order to offer a direct calculation of return on investment in terms of sales and customer loyalty coming through social media sites.
Gartner says that there are four steps businesses need to pursue to successfully use social media to manage customer relations. The first step is clearly defining the purpose of the social media initiative. Second, they must be willing to give up some degree of control over the medium, because the public wants some degree of ownership of the relationship as a reward for participating.
Third, companies should focus on rewards for customers that participate in social media. For example, they may set up venues whereby participants can rate contributions or information on the site, vote, and so on. Fourth and finally, companies should invest in having staff in-house who specifically set up social media customer relations as an initiative. This should never be done as just "something to try." Instead, if companies are truly going to try social media as a means to improve customer relations, it should be done seriously, with staff and ancillary staff devoted to it as required.
Social networking has really changed prospects' and customers' behavior, unequivocally. Gartner states that these customers no longer fit demographic profiles such that demographic measurements are entirely adequate or accurate. This is true even though demographics are the usual means companies measure customer relations' effectiveness by.
When it comes to your company, you're not going to want to invest a lot of time or effort in such an undertaking without knowing if it will pay off in terms of driving quality traffic to your company's website.
Non-linear Creations did a one-year study of the effects of five social media sites (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Stumbleupon) on their own home page. After a year, it was determined that social media sites drove about'% of their site's visitors from the referring sites in aggregate.
Of the social networking sites that drove traffic to business sites, Non-linear Creations determined that by far, two sites, LinkedIn and Facebook, did the best in terms of performance. That's important, but it's not everything. You also have to consider conversion rates. Non-linear Creations measured the conversion rate by determining those visitors that had downloaded a white paper, contacted them by phone or email, or subscribe to their newsletter or blog. When considered with these parameters, with "real prospects" actually being driven to their site, LinkedIn performed the best. It was in fact determined that traffic would convert much more frequently if it came from LinkedIn than it would if an average visitor was involved. In fact, other social media sites performed below average.
There's no guarantee that Linkedin will give your company the tangible results that Non-linear Creations got. It probably depends on what type of business you have. It is not quite understood what the less tangible benefits are of reaching customers online in a way that makes them feel as if the brand is listening and cares enough to interact in the way they desire. One of the things people dislike about customer support call centers is their anonymous feel. It keeps them from feeling a sense of relationship to the brand. So far no obvious downsides of using social media for customer service, so it would seem to be in any company's best interests to use this form of outreach.
It certainly isn't hard to create accounts on social media sites. The hard part is in actually interacting with customers on them, listening to them, and analyzing your online visitor numbers to see which social media sites give you the most return on investment in terms of online sales or some other metric. At that point you'll have to determine how much effort to put into making under-performing social media referrers more effective. - 32606
About the Author:
Learn more about Social Media. Stop by David Baxters's site www.SmartMediaInnovations.com where you can find out all the latest data and information about Social Media and how you can use it to improve your customer relations today.
