You might think that with all the benefits that come with using Social media why don’t more B2B organisations use it? Well some may feel that it doesn’t make sense to get on the SM train right now as they think that there would be no immediate effect to their bottom line… (see my post on ‘Prescribing return on involvement for the new digital economy’ (15÷1÷10) for my thoughts on that)
However, many diverse organisations have found success with simple things. For example, if you look a bit deeper at Dell’s social media activity — their worldwide community has grown to more than 3.5 million people across the social web; using platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Direct2Dell and IdeaStorm. That’s roughly a fan base half the size of London!
Dell’s twitter account (@DellOutlet) has 1,578,355 followers on Twitter (as of 19÷1÷10), and back in June 09′ they indicated that @DellOutlet had earned $3 million in revenue from Twitter alone.
What return can organisations expect by implementing social media?
No matter what the organisation size, companies big or small that effectively integrate social media can expect returns of:
• Increased brand loyalty — the more you engauge the more they engauge — it’s a win/win situation as long as the level of engagement satisfies their need… (see how these companies are successfully building loyalty: Dell, Starbucks & Kodak on Twitter or Dell, Starbucks & Kodak on Facebook and one example from Habitat UK that will definately NOT increase brand loyalty)
• Increased website traffic — look at the analytics to understand where your site traffic is coming from first (to get a benchmark) Compare month on month stats and which sites are refering the most traffic to you and ask yourself these questions:
- Which months were better than others?
- Can you identify why that was?
- Which blog posts, tweets etc drove the most traffic to you?
- Can you identify if anything other than the post had anything to do with it? (time of day, day of the week, referral traffic etc or if topic was particulary current)
- Knowing the above, try to repeat the result…
• Word-of-mouth referrals - More often than not, customers will tell you who had told them to ‘buy’ from you. If they don’t ask them!!!
• Increased brand awareness — By increasing the reach of your digital footprint, as long as you’re aligning the associated product/service keywords that your brand uses (be it you or your company as ‘the brand’), then your online visibility will increase…the key point is do you know what search terms your audience use to find the products or services that you or your organisation offers? No, then you need to read tomorrow’s blog on ‘You say potato I say solanum tuberosum: search term basics’ to find out how 
Is that enough return to justify integrating social media into your communications?
By developing in this ‘space’, not only will you keep ahead of the game but will appear relevant, memorable and more importantly be seen as being approachable.
As always, happy to be challenged and educated 
About Lee Smallwood
SEO, social content and signals advocate, closet geek (not fully fledge), writer, speaker, & blogger.
Founder of NOD3x (http://nod3x.com) — Social Network Analysis, knowledge graph analysis application
Lee can be contacted by email: here
Financial modelling course
The problem with most companies using social media is that they see it as a chance to talk “to” a customer, rather than “with” them.
I believe that businesses should use the natural ratio when talking with customers — we have 2 ears, but 1 mouth.…
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by RobertaWard and Peter ODonoghue, Jamie McNeil. Jamie McNeil said: Another good blog post RT @LeeSmallwood: New Blog Post: Is your online activity beyond reproach or unapproachable http://ping.fm/xwMKg […]
Des
you are right– companies try to use SM as they used traditional marketing where they talk ‘at’ a customer or in web terms ‘push’ their products at you, whereas SM is about interaction and its interaction which scares people because they fell its uncontrollable.
Lee
Analysing an ex blog post is something which should be obvious, too. Sometimes we forget that blogging is part of the social media circle of life!
Lee, a great post that tackles many of the ‘issues’ that I come across when I start to talk to my peers… I am going to forward the link to them.…
Hi Des, you’re not wrong and I’ve just posted “People are spending more of their time online, but don’t see this as an ‘opportunity’ to market to them, see it as an ‘obligation’ that you have to your customers to let them have their say…” from ‘http://leesmallwood.com/2010/01/it-doesnt-have-to-be-handbags-at-dawn/'
… and to complete your last sentence… “so listen twice as much speak”
Hi Robbie. You’re really becoming a pull not push advocate
good on ya!
How did you get on analysing your previous blog posts?
Thanks Rob. If you need any more info let me know
Ive not managed it yet-to analyse blog.Will have another go soon though.
Can you tell me the admin plug in thingy you mentioned for the job. Link would be good. Ta!
It’s google analytics plugin for your dashboard ( http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-anal… )
It displays a summary of top pages, site usage, top referrers and top searches — with a link to google to access full stats
Roberta, interaction scares businesses because they don’t want to admit that they’re not “in control” of the relationship with the customer. Businesses like to think that they own customers, and that customers are an asset. But the reality is that in a world of infinite choice, customers are the ones who own the relationship with a business.
Thanks Lee for the links etc.
Des, you are absolutely right, totally agree. At least with SM becoming more main steam the little guys get to compete with the bigger fish.Karma.
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