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.
Garner, an IT advisory and research company, has said that by 2010, 60% of the Fortune 1000 companies are going to be using social media as one method to make customer relations better. That's good news, but Gartner also states that over 50% of those companies who are going to use social media to improve customer relations will do it improperly, and in fact may actually harm customer relations rather than improve them. Gartner suggests that instead, companies focus on analyzing customer buying online so that they can get figures on return on investment for customer loyalty and sales, specifically as they happen through social media sites.
There are four steps, according to Gartner, that businesses need to follow so as to use social media sites successfully to both improve and manage customer relations. First, they must clearly define what this initiative in social media has as its purpose. Second, they must surrender some control over social media as a customer relations medium, because people want to own part of what they do as a reward for their participation.
Companies then have to reward those customers that participate socially. This may mean allowing them to vote on, or otherwise rate contributions and information on the site. Finally, companies must appoint someone in-house who has the skills to head up a social media customer relations initiative. Using social media for customer relations should never be an afterthought. In fact, it should probably have someone specifically devoted to it full time, with their own staff if necessary.
There is no question that social networking has changed the behavior of a critical mass of individuals as customers and prospects. According to Gartner, they can no longer be described adequately based on demographic information, which is the usual target for corporate customer relations efforts.
However, with that said, don't spend a lot of time or effort in trying to use social media as a focus with any great effort unless you know will pay off by driving truly valuable traffic to your website.
Non-linear Creations did a year's study of five social media sites, and their effects. These social media sites were Stumbleupon, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It was determined after that year that social media sites drove about'% of its site visitors from referring sites in aggregate.
Non-linear Creations determined that Facebook and LinkedIn were by far the highest performing social media sites. And while that's important, it's not everything. Conversion rates, too, are important. Non-linear Creations measured conversions by determining those visitors that downloaded one of their white papers, subscribed to their newsletter or blog, or contacted them via email or phone. For these purposes, in that these "real prospects" were driven to their site, LinkedIn had the best results. In fact, it was much more likely that traffic would convert if it came from LinkedIn than an average site visitor would. On average, other social media sites at performances that were actually 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.
Garner, an IT advisory and research company, has said that by 2010, 60% of the Fortune 1000 companies are going to be using social media as one method to make customer relations better. That's good news, but Gartner also states that over 50% of those companies who are going to use social media to improve customer relations will do it improperly, and in fact may actually harm customer relations rather than improve them. Gartner suggests that instead, companies focus on analyzing customer buying online so that they can get figures on return on investment for customer loyalty and sales, specifically as they happen through social media sites.
There are four steps, according to Gartner, that businesses need to follow so as to use social media sites successfully to both improve and manage customer relations. First, they must clearly define what this initiative in social media has as its purpose. Second, they must surrender some control over social media as a customer relations medium, because people want to own part of what they do as a reward for their participation.
Companies then have to reward those customers that participate socially. This may mean allowing them to vote on, or otherwise rate contributions and information on the site. Finally, companies must appoint someone in-house who has the skills to head up a social media customer relations initiative. Using social media for customer relations should never be an afterthought. In fact, it should probably have someone specifically devoted to it full time, with their own staff if necessary.
There is no question that social networking has changed the behavior of a critical mass of individuals as customers and prospects. According to Gartner, they can no longer be described adequately based on demographic information, which is the usual target for corporate customer relations efforts.
However, with that said, don't spend a lot of time or effort in trying to use social media as a focus with any great effort unless you know will pay off by driving truly valuable traffic to your website.
Non-linear Creations did a year's study of five social media sites, and their effects. These social media sites were Stumbleupon, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It was determined after that year that social media sites drove about'% of its site visitors from referring sites in aggregate.
Non-linear Creations determined that Facebook and LinkedIn were by far the highest performing social media sites. And while that's important, it's not everything. Conversion rates, too, are important. Non-linear Creations measured conversions by determining those visitors that downloaded one of their white papers, subscribed to their newsletter or blog, or contacted them via email or phone. For these purposes, in that these "real prospects" were driven to their site, LinkedIn had the best results. In fact, it was much more likely that traffic would convert if it came from LinkedIn than an average site visitor would. On average, other social media sites at performances that were actually 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.
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.
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