Driving Social Media Success Higher!

Last week I wrote a post about business statistics that proved the success of social media marketing, gleaning the information from several studies that were done between 2009 and 2011. I have received many comments about the post here and on my social media accounts. It showed me how interested people are in statistics that prove social media helps businesses improve their bottom line, and I started searching for more statistics, and ways that social media could drive profits higher. Image

Since that post was just a quick one, off the top of my head, I neglected to cite the source of the studies I referred to that mentioned these statistics:

Social media users revenue grew at 19% vs. non-SM users 6%
Client base of SM users grew at 21% vs. non-SM users
61% of LinkedIn users gained a client through SM
35% of Facebook users gained a client
47% of blog owners gained a client
36% overall gained clients through a social network.

The sources were a 2011 Hubspot Report, 2010 Socialware Survey, and a 2009 Pershing-Aite Study.

Most businesses realize the potential of social media to enhance their bottom line. Even the largest companies understand that the investment in manpower (social media work is labor intensive) is vital. In fact, "research conducted by Buddy Media shows that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are always considered while making marketing strategies in bigger companies. 94% of the participating companies said that Facebook was the top priority when it came to social media marketing."

Other statistics that this study ferreted out were more telling. The respondents in this particular study were Chief Marketing Officers, and when asked what their purpose for using social media was, only 38% said for sales. Another telling stat is that 35% of these CMOs reported they had no strategic plan for social media use. These study results were reported in a recent Geeks4Share article.

Another report, this one a Forrester study, reported by Mashable, concluded that just 49% of CMOs and Marketing VPs had fully integrated social media in to their brand building efforts. Just about all of them realized the potential and the change that social media has made in how consumers and brands engage, but almost half were baffled about how to use it to make a dollars and sense difference.

There has been a lot of talk about the effectiveness of social media this week as GM pulled their advertising dollars from Facebook on the eve of their IPO. Here on Social Media Today, Steve Olenski addressed it in The Real Reason GM Left Facebook. Being a GM fan, I have frequented their fan pages, and can attest that they never seemed to engage much--using them generally as broadcast tools. This is too much like traditional media--one way communication, instead of the more personal dialogue that social media offers. So maybe their strategy needs tweaking! (I wonder where I can find an email address for Dan Akerson, offering my help.)

Overall, the numbers in this article seem to tell us that companies know they should market with social media, but do not know how to do it. In fact, half of the business to consumer marketers surveyed agreed with the statement “Social media has the potential to build my brand, but I’m not sure how to capitalize on it.”

That last statement excites me for the future we can expect from social media. Most social media devotees, like myself, realize that companies often do not understand how to implement social media-- at all! The larger ones, of course, have figured out some things, but it seems there is a lot of opportunity to help businesses put an effective social media plan in place that drives traffic, engages customers, and encourages brand loyalty.

Facebook adds "Listen" button to band and artist fan pages.

On the 17th April 2012, Facebook added a “Listen” button to its artist and band pages that gives fans an easy way to listen to their favourite songs directly on Facebook itself.

From writing this, fans can listen to songs from artists such as Linkin Park, Lady Gaga andJessie J to name a few, directly on Facebook via various music services like Spotify, MOGand Deezer. The “Listen” button is available on most artists’ pages. Check out your favourite bands fan pages!

The “Listen” button is located in between the “Like” and “Message” buttons on the artist’s page and will connect the user to the music service that they use most often. The very first time you click on the “Listen” button, a notice from the resulting participating service will pop up and ask you to grant access. If you will to listen to music you will have to accept this access.

All your listening activity will be published to your page in real-time since the music service apps are connected with the Facebook Timeline.

Will you be using Facebook to listen to your favourite artists? Do you think Facebook will be introducing more music orientated tools onto their social media network in the future? Let us know your thoughts.

Facebook Business Cards: Now Available for Your Business

Now your business or brand can make your Facebook page pocket-sized and send it home with clients and potential customers — all for free. Moo.com, the company behind Facebook Timeline-themed cards that launched earlier this year are now extending the offer to businesses.

“As global businesses and brands, large and small, and their agencies seek new ways to catch attention and take advantage of new marketing channels, we believe this free offer will be a much-sought after additional tool to add to their marketing suite,” said Richard Moross, CEO and Founder of Moo.

Page administrators can integrate the products and services showcased on their Facebook Pages into the cards, and can pair specific images with cards focused around a new offering, service or product launch.

Each business can get one pack of 50 cards for free, with cards running $15 a pack afterwards including shipping.

“The response from our first Moo offer was very positive and generated great momentum for our business,” said Paul Lewis, Head of Marketing for Moo. “We quickly realized that we were filling a very timely niche in the marketplace for users who wanted a more dynamic, buzzworthy and fun social-networking experience. Our new offer is designed to fulfill a further need on the business side and meet the expectations of our loyal customers for other, more versatile ways to use Moo.com cards — and we’re delivering.”

Users in 150 countries took advantage of Moo’s initial offer, with cards being shipped everywhere from Moo’s typical U.S. and U.K. addresses to far-off locations like Greenlandand and the Maldives. Moo’s Facebook-themed cards for businesses are available now.

What do you think of the cards? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

Twitter Will Email You Top Stories From Your Feed

Twitter will soon begin emailing you a weekly digest of your own feed.

The summary will include tweets and links that are likely to be important to you based on what the people who you follow share.

It will also include the “most engaging” tweets and stories those people saw in their own feeds, if they retweet or favorite them.

“Stories feature a design similar to the recently updated Discover tab, emphasizing who shared each story beneath summaries to help you decide which ones matter most to you,” reads a Monday post on the Twitter blog.

“Click any headline to finish reading the story, add your take by tweeting directly from the email, and see related Tweets from the people you follow.”

The announcement makes Twitter‘s recent move to hire the team behind RestEngine, a personalized email marketing provider, less mysterious.

Twitter also acquired a startup called Summify earlier this year, which offered a product similar to this new email digest. Before it was acquired, Summify emailed users five stories that they should read based on what their friends on social networks shared and engaged with.

You get your stories once a day or every few hours and then you're done, Summify co-founder Mircea Paoi told Mashable months before the sale. That's the feeling that people actually enjoy” that they're done and theres not more that they need to read.

Making information that is shared on Twitter easier to absorb for all Twitter users makes sense for the social network. As of October, 40% of Twitter users who actively log into Twitter don’t ever Tweet. They’re there to listen.

Email digests are set to roll out to everyone “over the next few weeks.”

Do you think a weekly Twitter digest will be helpful? Or will it just create more spam in your already overflowing inbox? Let us know in the comments.