Some brands, like Wachovia, use a single corporate channel for all of their social media efforts. Other brands, like Kodak, created multiple corporate channels that are managed by individual business units.

Why Tribes?

As businesses look toward new opportunities to grow their presence, it may be time to reconsider your strategy about tribes and determine whether you’re truly delivering “value” to your followers.

Marketing segmentation offers an interesting opportunity to continue to grow your following while delivering highly targeted content that is relevant to your most profitable customer segments.

Market segmenting is dividing the market into groups of individual markets with similar wants or needs that a company divides into distinct groups which have distinct needs, wants, behavior or which might want different products & services. ~Wikipedia.

Put simply, market segmentation is creating groups of your customers based on a criterion that signifies that they have similar interests and needs.

Visionary Seth Godin put a new spin on segmentation in his book, Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us, and shares his ideas in an extremely powerful Ted Talk.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQGYr9bnktw

Seth talked about tribes in terms of leadership, but there are unique opportunities to empower similar movements that already exist within our customer base using basic segmentation tactics.

Here are 7 different types of market segmentation you can use to empower your own tribe.

Create a strategy around passion. Image: iStockPhoto

#1: Passions

Are there groups of your customers who share common passions?

Aligning with something your customers are already passionate about and delivering content that’s specific and relevant to that theme is a great way to generate a bigger audience of others who are also passionate about the subject.

For example, Kodak could create a strategy around serving photographers specializing in nature photography.

#2: Generational Dynamics

Does your brand attract a specific generation or span across multiple generations? Each generation has specific wants, needs and value systems that make it difficult to utilize a broad approach and address. “Each generation of the US population has unique wants and needs that marketers and retailers should address differently,” according to The Nielsen Company.

Each generation has different wants, needs and values. Image: iStockPhoto

#3: Life Events

Are there large groups within your customer base who have experienced specific life events that create synergy and passion around the subject? For example, you may find that your products provide a unique offering that’s helpful for divorcées, cancer survivors or new parents.

The key to selecting a life event is to discover something that becomes part of how people will define themselves as a result of going through the experience. A passing experience won’t generate the kind of following you are looking for. Think about life-changing events and how your brand can support customers at that time.

#4: Life Stage

All people go through a series of life stages as they mature, and while they are in each stage they have unique perspectives and needs based on the life events that typically occur at each life stage.

For example, newly married couples may be considering purchasing their first home, balancing work and family life and planning when they should have their first child. This is drastically different from what may be top of mind for empty-nesters, whose children have just moved out of the family home. They may be thinking about what they will do with their newfound freedom, downsizing the family home, preparing for retirement, paying for college and planning care for their aging parents. Does your brand have an opportunity to provide value to these conversations?

#5: Demographics

Another opportunity may exist within specific customer demographics. You can look at demographics such as gender, marital status, income and ethnicity to determine if there are unique needs that you can provide value around.

For example, AdAge took a look at multicultural targeting today and found that, “delivering of a message about a product or a service is best done when the advertiser understands the lens through which a consumer is viewing both the culture they’re in … and how their own experiences map onto it.” Will segmenting based on demographics allow you to provide more highly relevant, targeted information to your audience?

#6: Geography

For brands that use a local or regional marketing strategy, it may be appropriate to use a similar strategy for your social media channels. This is usually important in areas where having a local presence is critical to success. Strategies can vary from moving from global to country-specific and all the way down to cities, counties and provinces. Take a look at the type of geographic targeting you are currently using and see if there is a natural fit that makes strategic sense.

Look at your current geographic targeting. Image: iStockPhoto

#7: Product Choices

The final option is to segment based on which products a customer has shown loyalty toward. Typically, the product a customer buys tells you something about him or her and gives insight into how you can add value to his or her life. For example, Proctor and Gamble has a separate social presence for its Pampers brand where they provide customer service and games that give customers points for diaper coupons.

Finding ways to give away their products and services.

Before you select a target, consider whether you already have resources to support the group. If you don’t, put together a list of the resources you would need.

The largest need in any niche strategy is content. It’s ideal to have a blog and content calendar for the types of content you will have available that are targeted to your audience segment. If you can’t create all of the content yourself, don’t worry. With a few searches you can probably find third-party sources who are already writing great content that you can leverage with your outreach strategy.

What tribes exist within your customer base? How can you give them a voice? What platform can you offer them to help them spread and grow? What are you doing to connect them? Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments section below.

Images from iStockPhoto.

Don’t worry. You aren’t alone.

I fought this battle also, and in the end I realized that I needed to drop terms like followers, retweets and status updates from my discussions in executive meetings. It was a tough conclusion, but I realized those metrics didn’t tell executives what they wanted to know.

This article will share 7 tips for getting executive buy-in for social media.

#1: Identify with the mindset of executives

It's important to work together to measure social media optimization.

Think about social media measurement differently. Try to remove all jargon and put it into a language that executives can understand and ultimately help tie results to the bottom line.

Executives think at a 50,000-foot view. Most of them aren’t looking at metrics like daily site traffic; they’re looking at sales reports. Their benchmarks are different than what we’re used to measuring ourselves.  It’s mission-critical that you align your benchmarks with theirs.

#2: Show them the money

Because social media is new territory for them, it’s too complex to try to teach them the “new” measurements and have them make the connection to what matters to the company on their own.

To be successful, you need to clearly make the connection for them. There is one way to do this and eliminate confusion. SHOW THEM THE MONEY! Yes, that is a shameless Jerry McGuire reference. But it’s extremely relevant.  Transform your conversation with executives about social media into how it impacts sales, revenue and costs.

These three items are at the top of every executive’s mind. They look at reports every single day to determine whether the company is meeting its sales and revenue projections and they watch costs like hawks to make sure profits aren’t being eroded.

Your challenge is to find a way to put social media into the context of how it impacts these core metrics, so you can finally break through and get your executives excited about the possibilities that social media brings to the company.

#3: Stop freaking out

Don't let fear prevent you from taking action.

Trust me, no-one knows more than I do that tying sales, revenue and cost to social media is darn near impossible from where you’re sitting right now. It sounds great in theory, but the execution is a whole different ball of wax. However, I will tell you it’s not impossible. With the right questions, the right tools and the right people in the room you can find a way.

#4: Understand what you CAN measure today

If you were to sit down and look at the three metrics—sales, revenue and cost—which ones can you measure today? I can probably answer this for you—cost. We pretty much all know what we’ve spent on social media in the last year and what we plan to spend this year.

#5: Know what you CAN’T measure today

Having clear and concrete goals is important in calculating your return on investment.

Take a look at your company’s executive reports. What metrics are your executives actually looking at? What metrics are you struggling to get data on for social media? Is it revenue and sales (units sold)? It’s okay if it is, but your goal is to find a way to add social media into the mix.

#6: Recognize what you’re dealing with

What systems does your company use to generate the executive reports? Typically, it includes a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, campaign reporting system, web analytics system and potentially an accounting system if that isn’t part of your CRM package. Focus on how your other online activities are tied into these systems.

For example, how do you know if sales are coming from Google Adwords or organic search? How is that tracked, what systems does it pass through and where does the data end up?

Then we get to the tough part. Can you leverage any of these systems to track social media traffic? If you can’t do it with how they’re set up today, ask what modifications need to be made in order to include it.

#7: Put together a plan for today and tomorrow

Your plan should include internal and external goals.

You’re probably going to have to do some work to get social media included into your existing metrics for the company. And unfortunately, that will take something we’re all lacking… time. But that’s okay because while you’re building for how you’ll measure in the future, you can also leverage what you know today. If you’re like me, that’s cost.

Here are three metrics you can probably get today. While they aren’t ideal executive metrics, they’ll tell a story that your executives will understand.

Cost per site visit

You can use the referring URL in your web tracking system to calculate the number of visits generated from social media channels and generate a cost per site visit to compare against other types of referrers.

Cost per impression

If your company is heavy on traditional advertising like TV and radio or public relations outreach, executives are used to looking at cost per impression metrics. You can use tools like TweetReach to get rough calculations for Twitter.

TweetReach generates reports with key metrics like reach and exposure.

Cost per subscriber

If you can look at the referring URLs for your newsletter or email subscribers, you can also calculate the cost per subscriber. Think of this in terms of the cost of getting the email address of a prospect. Social media can generate really low costs per subscriber, giving it a leg up on some other online channels.

As more executives become interested in social media, it’s our responsibility to show them that it isn’t fluff and that it does contribute to the bottom line. You can check out these 6 Social Media Success Metrics You Need to Track, 8 Social Media Metrics You Should Be Measuring and this Study Reveals Top 6 Social Media Goals for 2011.  You can also check out this 33 page step-by-step guide, if you’re up for the challenge.

Hopefully, these tips will help you get there.

How about you? What kind of questions are your executives asking about social? Add your thoughts and share your perspective in the comment box below.

All photos from iStockphoto.

As enticing as the saying is, “If you build it, they will come,” we all know that just because we build a social media presence, people don’t magically start knocking down our door.

Instead, we need to encourage people to come to our social pages and once they’re there, we have to create enough value for them to hang around. And through these repeated exchanges, casual users can become regular visitors as well as valuable leads.

In previous posts, I’ve written A-Z guides to help create the absolute best presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Now let’s turn our attention to harnessing the power of those efforts for lead generation.

#1: Assets

As part of your social media marketing plan, Michelle deHaaff suggests that companies examine social media and online assets to see what they can leverage for full social media engagement. She identifies seven key assets: location, people, stories, images, video, audio and words to help us think about engaging more fully.

#2: Brand Message

Ethan Lyon suggests that users want to identify with a brand. He offers Nike’s identity as an example, “Customers buy Nike because the brand gives them the confidence to succeed—much like an effective coach.” What is your brand message? What should users know about you? Can they tell that from what you’re posting?

#3: Compelling Messages

Use compelling messages throughout your communications. Craft messages that users can relate to and won’t be able to resist. These are generally the messages that speak like real people and not marketing spin. Below is an example from Pogue’s Post.

David Pogue uses a conversational tone and a bit of humor to drive home a point from Pogue's Post.

#4: Differentiations

Because there’s a tremendous amount of competition vying for consumers’ attention in the social media arena, businesses that can differentiate themselves will stand out and get noticed. Zappos Service Twitter page shows how to make it friendly and feel like you’re hanging out with a good friend. Create remarkable content.

http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/wp-admin/post.php?action=edit&post=8364&message=1

Zappos employees tell you when they're signing off and when they're leaving for the night.

#5: Etiquette

Michelle Golden recommends in her book Social Media Strategies for Professionals and Their Firms to practice good etiquette. “Definitely don’t write about and link only to your stuff. Instead, go out of your way to promote others liberally.”

#6: Feedback

Users who write comments and ask questions appreciate receiving feedback. Make it a regular practice to take time to respond.

A fan poses a question on Social Media Examiner's Facebook page and Cindy King responds with a timely answer and directs the fan to a link.

#7: Google

Remember that the social media updates you post via your blog, Facebook page, tweets and YouTube channel appear in search results, too. The person searching is an active user looking for information, and bringing the user to your pages is an excellent way to get in front of potential customers.

A person looking for sources for how to choose a paint color would find blog posts and videos. This person is looking for help and the companies have provided advice and solutions. The companies have found ways to get in front of potential customers.

#8: Help a Reporter Out

Companies are often looking for ways to share experiences that might be referenced in blog posts and articles. You don’t have to be a big company to get picked up for a story.

Sign up for Help a Reporter Out and when you have a story to share on a topic, offer the information to the reporter. HARO is one good way to spread information and get high-quality, free publicity for your business. Keep your eyes open for other ways to distribute information about your business with social media press releases.

HARO serves as a vital social networking resource for sources, reporters and advertisers.

#9: Icons

Social media icons help users share your content and offer ways for people to like your content. Likes are valuable votes of confidence and go a long way with users who may have come to your site for the first time. Make your content easy to share.

#10: Joy

In Guy Kawasaki’s new book Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds and Actions, he tells us that achieving trustworthiness will go a long way for a business. People want to do business with companies and people they can trust. And sometimes it means that we may end up giving our time or some kind of service that we’re not compensated for. Guy suggests that we give with joy.

#11: Knowledge-sharing

Share your knowledge freely in blog posts and white papers. Some businesses are afraid they’ll give away all of their secrets. Your knowledge is a valuable asset; don’t be afraid to share what you know.

HubSpot's inbound Internet marketing blog regularly shares the blogger's personal experiences in marketing and is very generous about sharing tips.

#12: Leverage Content Products

Jeff Bullas recommends using 7 content products for marketing: social media, e-newsletters, blogs, white papers, article marketing, case studies and online videos.

Use a good mix of content, because not all users will read a case study or watch an online video. You’ll increase your odds of being seen by more people by using a mix of content products.

#13: Monitor Conversations

Monitor conversations about your brand and competitors. There are many social media listening tools that will help you keep a pulse on what’s being talked about. The more you know, the more responsive you can be.

#14: Nobodies Are the New Somebodies

One of the most serious mistakes we can make is to pass up a potential lead because we don’t perceive the company or person to be a valuable lead. As Guy Kawasaki says, “Nobodies are the new somebodies in the world of wide-open communications.” Treat everyone with the same attention and respect.

#15: Offline Skills

Online skills don’t have to be inherently different than the way we act offline. Erica Swallow suggests that we use our offline skills and go out there and “Meet people, communicate and build relationships… Be genuine, track conversations and respond to inquiries promptly and thoroughly.”

#16: Produce Content

Not only do we have to produce content, we also have to produce enough of it. HubSpot provides some interesting recommendations: “Businesses must produce enough content for their blog to kick off growth in leads, which starts with about 24 to 51 posts.” HubSpot found that more indexed pages on Google also translate to more leads. They suggest that every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth.

#17: Questions

Lisa Barone recommends that social media marketers should “answer questions because they’re a good way to establish your authority, but also for people to ‘test’ you out.”

#18: Relationships

Lisa Barone also suggests that “social media is an emerging lead generation tool because it lowers the barrier to the sale by building relationships, displaying expertise and through networking you’re able to bring in more people than cold calling ever could.”

#19: Showcase Your Experience

According to Erica Swallow, “The first step to engaging a community of potential customers is sharing content that showcases your expertise. A simple social media update usually isn’t enough to convey a full analysis on a topic. Include links with your updates that expand on key ideas. Keep in mind that your goal is to create value for your followers. Learn what your fans respond to and what they don’t, and then adjust your updates based on that information.”

#20: Target Personas

Buyer personas have been around long before social media hit our radar screens, but marketers have found that having a good picture in mind of the target customer is beneficial in terms of how we write our content.

A blog, for example, can have multiple categories of topics and so you may find that certain categories speak more to certain personas than others. And certain Facebook and Twitter updates may appeal to certain users.

Regardless of how you segment these groups, it’s incredibly beneficial to share target persona information with whoever is developing content for your social media channels.

Before writing, review your persona list to remind yourself whom you're conversing with.

#21: Useful Content

Kristina Halvorson, author of Content Strategy for the Web, says that if our content isn’t supporting the successful fulfillment of our business objectives or our users’ top goals, then it’s a waste of pixels. She suggests adding two columns to a content inventory: value to user and value to business.

#22: Value

Guy Kawasaki says there are three types of value: 1) pointers to useful, inspiring or entertaining content, 2) personal insights, observations or content, 3) advice and assistance. Guy’s recommendation is to pass along these gems to friends and followers to help them derive more value from online resources.

#23: Word of Mouth

The Marqui Web Marketing Blog’s post 6 Ways Social Media Marketing Helps B2B Lead Generation says, “Word of mouth has been, and continues to be, one of the best ways to generate more leads for your business. Buyers tend to trust peer referrals more than any other source of information and since social media allows people to share their experiences (both good and bad) with a wide range of people, this can help increase trust in your company’s products and services.”

#24: Excellence

The Network Singularity blog says “there are 5 C’s to social media excellence: coordination of social media activities, commitment means engaging with your environment and deliberately pursuing social interactions, confidence in your social media activities, comprehension of social media, and cultivation of worthwhile and friendly relationships.”

#25: Yes

Being likable on social media enhances our potential for lead generation. Guy Kawasaki says one way to become likable is to “adopt a yes attitude. This means your default response to people’s requests is yes… By contrast, a no response stops everything… To make a default yes work, you must assume people are reasonable, honest and grateful.”

#26: Zeal

Enthusiasm is contagious. By showing the fervor you have for your business, products and services, and through the content you share on your social media channels, users will be inclined to want to stick around, engage and build a relationship. Reach out and show your enthusiasm.

What ways have you generated leads with social media? What would you add to this list? Leave your comments in the box below.

If you’ve been using social media for a while and you’re still waiting for it to deliver positive revenue, here are some tips you can employ when your social media strategies are struggling to produce.

When you start any kind of social media activity, the ROI will probably be negative. Building revenue from social media activities takes time because you have to develop trust with your audience first.

However, there are many companies that have been using social media for more than 6 months and they’re still not able to show a positive ROI. Why? And where can you look to find potential sources of fallout?

Here are some activities that can kill any good social media strategy.

#1: You Have a Pushy Sales Strategy

Pushy salespeople kill trust.

Once social media brings in a lead, it falls into whatever the normal sales process is for the company. Most companies are not treating these leads any differently than their other leads. Here’s the challenge.

If your company has an approach that traditionally deals with what we call “fast” leads (that convert quickly and respond to multiple phone calls that ask when the person is going to be ready to buy), you may be turning your social media leads off with what’s perceived as “spammy” calls and messages.

We work hard to build relationships and develop trust in social media. Nothing kills that trust faster than screaming for the sale. Just remember that people LOVE to buy, but HATE to be sold.

TIP: Consider putting social media leads into a separate sales process with a different type of scripting.

Rather than asking when people are ready to buy, ask how you can be of service and what you can do to help them meet their needs. Use their answers to determine their time frame for purchase and gear your follow-ups around that.

#2: You’re Using the “Buy Now” Approach

You’ve seen it before—the follow-up email with the big “BUY NOW” button and nothing else in the message. This falls right into the same category as the sales strategy mentioned in #1 and can lead to a quick unsubscribe.

The typical email and communications strategy that you use for “other” leads may not be appropriate for those coming through social media. We expect a personalized response. Show you know who leads are and that you understand their needs. Some prospects are ready to buy now, but others are looking for information and resources and may not be in the “buying” phase.

TIP: It’s okay to have a Buy Now button in an email, but consider offering a personalized message based on what you know about the person and what he or she is trying to accomplish.

Acknowledge how you got his or her name and ask questions; don’t repeat marketing messaging. If prospects don’t click the Buy Now button the first time, try replacing it with something that offers a free resource download or something of value to the lead that isn’t followed up by a sales call. Reintroduce the Buy Now button later.

#3: You’re Not Asking for the Sale

This may sound contrary to the first two, but I’ve also seen the exact opposite where companies are so scared of offending someone that they never ask for the sale at all.

It’s important to give your leads an easy and convenient way to convert into customers. They probably aren’t going to go searching for it on their own and you could lose the sale to a competitor that does.

TIP: Use a combination of lead scoring and lead profiling to determine where someone is in your sales funnel and what he or she is looking for so you can tailor messages that answer prospects’ needs.

Use the lead score and “profile” of who leads are to develop your sales approach and marketing communications strategies for each group. The easiest way to break it up is to create “fast, medium and slow” groups and align the communications strategy with a top “pain point.” Always include a direct call to action in communications, but understand when and where it’s appropriate in your communication vehicles.

Here’s a great example of how Avaya turned a Twitter interaction into a $250k sale by listening to and engaging with potential customers.

#4: You’re Not Properly Using Lead Forms

This can come in a few different scenarios; for example: Companies may confuse when someone fills out a lead form for a free piece of content with sales interest, they may only have lead forms for interest in their products or they aren’t using lead forms to collect information for those who are downloading their biggest pieces of content that generate sales interest.

There are two core examples of improper lead form usage.

• Companies aggressively follow up with “leads” from landing pages offering free content with pushy sales messages as described in #2. The person who filled out the lead form wanted the free content. Unless he expressed that he is also interested in your products, you could be confusing content interest with sales interest.
• Companies only have lead forms for interest in their products. They aren’t using lead forms to collect information for those who are downloading their biggest pieces of content that generate sales interest. This would include items such as white papers or ebooks related to your industry that show your company’s position in the landscape. Don’t miss the opportunity to develop relationships with those who may not be interested in buying today, but will be tomorrow.

TIP: Understand the different types of lead forms you’re using and create a communications strategy that utilizes the buying mindset of the different individuals who fill out those forms.

Consider asking a question in each lead form that tells you whether the leads are “fast, medium or slow” and identify their pain point so you can align your communications strategy with where they are in the buying process and what problem you can help them solve.

HubSpot wrote a great post on how to use better questions to determine lead scores.

Applying lead scores to your sales funnel.

#5: You’re Not Providing “Decision-Making” Content

With social media outreach, you have a tremendous opportunity to help people make decisions about the products they choose. “One of the key benefits of social media (that’s rarely discussed) is its ability to resolve doubt and confusion among fence-sitters,” Jay Baer eloquently stated. Your content strategy needs to focus on helping these “fence-sitters” choose you.

True decision-making content aligns the customer’s pain point with the solutions that solve it. It’s what we call “evergreen” content designed to help find the tipping point to move your leads to the next stage in the sales funnel, from “slow” to “medium” and from “medium” to “fast.” It’s content that you pour your heart and best resources into that, as a result, is always relevant to sales conversion.

Here are some examples of great decision-making content:

• Eloqua uses white papers, webinars, demos and toolkits to drive the sales process. Notice that every piece of content is directly related to problems that Eloqua can help solve.
• HubSpot has a vast array of resources for various content types around their core business, “Inbound Marketing“. By offering the information in these formats, it allows readers to select the “depth” of information they want on the subject and also help signal where they are in the buying process to HubSpot.
• CareOne offers tips on how to vet other debt-relief providers against them.

TIP: Create content that helps your prospects evaluate you against your competition and make the right decision for them.

Understand that it’s just as important to know when customers aren’t a good fit as it is to know when they are. Provide content about topics that you know lead to interest in your products and/or services. Wrap all of this content with a lead form and put the leads in the appropriate place in the funnel.

If you aren’t sure how to create decision-making content, here’s a great article to get you started.

The reason your social media strategy isn’t delivering ROI may have nothing to do with your social media strategy itself and everything to do with what happens after you receive the lead. Evaluate what happens to your social media leads and look for opportunities to cater to their needs, which may be different than for a lead that came from a direct-response paid search ad. Know the difference and you may find that your social media leads convert faster, better and deliver a much better ROI.

Check out these two great resources on driving social media ROI. Use your Blog to Drive Social Sales and Driving Targeted Twitter Traffic.

What ROI social media strategies have you found work best for your company? What tips do you have to share? Please leave your comments in the box below.

Photos: Flickr & Nichole Kelly

The American ice cream retailer, known for pounding and slapping customized creations on a “cold stone,” has long been a favorite of ice cream lovers – enthusiasm that has helped churn out 1,459 locations in the U.S. and 16 countries.

Like many retailers, the company long relied on traditional advertising to spread the word. But a YouTube video contest in 2005 set the company on a social media course.

Today, Cold Stone continues to innovate outside the kitchen, recently releasing what may be the first eGift feature on Facebook, and running contests that get thousands engaged even more deeply with the brand.

The payoff goes well beyond greater customer engagement; Cold Stone’s promotions add to the bottom line by moving people from their computers to physical stores.

$10,000 from eGift Sales

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve likely either given or received a virtual “gift” or widget from a friend, an icon such as a birthday cake or heart. These virtual tokens of affection allow friends to express their care.

This July, Cold Stone made eGifting more tangible. Now you can send Facebook friends a code for an actual ice cream creation eGift, ranging from $5 to $7, right from the Cold Stone Facebook fan page for delivery via Facebook or email. Like a gift certificate, recipients can instantly redeem the gift at any of the retailer’s American locations by showing a printout or the code on their mobile phones.

Cold Stone’s eGift Social uniquely allows Facebook friends to send codes for tangible gifts.

For a viral effect, the eGift shows up in the recipient’s News Feed on Facebook, so all friends can see it.

One of the first brands to enable eGift Social, created by First Data Corporation, Cold Stone links its social media presence directly with sales.

“The strategy, and really our goal, for eGift was more for that everyday gift,” said Suzanne Schutz, vice president of marketing at Cold Stone Creamery. “So, Veronica is having a bad day. I see that she posted something on her Facebook status. Very easily from the office in 2 minutes, I can spend $5 and send her an ice cream, and it makes her day.”

So far, the results are impressive, delivering on Cold Stone’s goal of increasing revenue for its many franchisees.

“We’ve sold in just over a month and a half, about 2,000 eGifts and we’ve added roughly $10,000 in incremental sales to the franchisees,” Schutz said. “Franchisees love it because they don’t have to do anything. It’s no extra labor. It’s all done in the virtual world, if you will, and then they just watch the sales come in. So they love it. We love it. Our fans love it. It’s definitely a win-win.”

Coupon Boosts Sales More Than 1%

In direct response to Facebook fans’ requests, Cold Stone decided to run a 2-for-$5 coupon campaign. The retailer posted the offer on its Facebook page and notified contacts by email.

Just 3 weeks in, fans had printed more than 500,000 coupons, with more than 20,000 of those from Facebook. Clearly, the campaign went well beyond just pleasing customers.

“Since we launched the campaign, we’ve seen sales increase just about 1 to 1.2%,” Schutz said. “We’ve seen a redemption rate of over 14%. For me as an advertiser, that’s a great ROI. For traditional advertising we would have spent upwards of $500,000 and we would have seen less redemption. I think our average redemption was .02%. So far, it exceeds what traditional advertising and print do.”

Fans ‘Eat Up’ New Flavors Contest

A summer flavors contest additionally drove fans to the company’s Facebook page and stores. Nearly 4,000 people entered the contest requiring them to post creative comments of 50 words or fewer about one of three featured summer flavors available in stores.

While official judges chose the winners based on originality, all entrants could share their entries and encourage their friends to vote for theirs. Entrants shared the news more than 3,000 times and more than 1,800 people voted through the application created by Wildfire Interactive.

“We saw 66,000 new fans over about an 8-week period,” said Anne Christenson, director of social marketing. “Obviously, it helps us gain some fans.”

The winners earned a trip to the Scottsdale, Arizona headquarters to work with the Cold Stone taste master on creating their own flavors. From there, Cold Stone will pick its favorite flavor to roll out at stores across the country in 2011.

A new flavors contest brought in 66,000 new Facebook fans.

Lowering the Cost of Sales

Cold Stone has made social media a major part of its marketing strategy, setting a goal of increasing traffic to stores by 3% through social media and non-traditional advertising like email, while reducing advertising spend.

“My main priority is profitability in driving sales,” Schutz said. “It is a lot less expensive than traditional advertising, say, a national billboard campaign or newspaper insert.”

The retailer focuses on four or five key promotions throughout the year, getting the attention of customers through Facebook, email, Twitter and YouTube. On YouTube, the company posts footage from events like its annual “World’s Largest Ice Cream Social,” which benefits Make-A-Wish Foundation.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1NHu5nldUc

So far, every campaign with social media has brought a spike in store traffic and sales. Combined with lower marketing costs, the team has truly added to profit margins.

Currently, Cold Stone averages a cost of about 39 cents per coupon redeemed, compared to $3.60 per redemption with print advertising. Now more than half of the company’s advertising budget is dedicated to non-traditional activities like social media.

All that contributes to the company’s goal of raising sales for its many franchisees.

“We let our fans know about our new product launches or programs like eGift and our new flavors. And, in turn, we hope that our fans get excited about it, and then that drives them into our store, and ultimately makes the sale,” Schutz said.

How is your organization successfully driving visitors from social media sites to your shopping carts or cash registers? Let us know your comments in the box below.

The cost-effectiveness of social media has vaulted it to the top of the list of tools used to improve customer retention. But how do you measure whether social media is affecting your ability to keep customers?

To examine this, let’s look at a case study of a company that has excelled at connecting with customers in social media spaces.

What We Can Learn From Comcast

If you’ve been following companies using social media, then you’re sure to be watching what Comcast is doing.

They were presented with a difficult challenge of dealing with a perception of poor customer service and trying to change that perception.

This is evidenced by over 6300 people who are fans of the Facebook page called “I Hate Comcast.”

They did a combination of things in order to meet their objective. Frank Eliason, who Business Week called the most famous customer service manager ever, started the @ComcastCares Twitter account (he’s since moved on). This has now expanded to multiple Twitter accounts from their digital team that all start with @Comcast, my personal favorite being @ComcastBonnie. They also have several Facebook Fan pages with the Comcast fan page being the primary channel where they provide customer service to Facebook users.

My tweet to Comcast.

In my personal experience, I had an issue with Comcast that I tweeted about and several things happened. Almost immediately, I received a reply from @ComcastBonnie asking if she could assist me. My issue was then transferred to a national response person who told me he was following up on my issue and would get back to me.

It took a few attempts but my cable got installed and I spoke to an amazing person who addressed my issue and was determined to make me happy, despite the issues I faced. So how should Comcast measure whether their efforts mattered? There are a few key metrics I recommend you examine.

#1: Customer Retention Rate

Will I stay with Comcast longer than a customer who never interacted with Comcast’s social media team? Compare the retention rate of customers who interact with social media channels versus those who don’t, whether it is through your customer service efforts and separately for any leads that have been generated.

Each month the customer stays with Comcast is worth a certain amount of revenue to the company. Assign an average dollar value to customers at different points in the life cycle and compare the value of a social media customer versus a non-social media customer based on retention rates.

#2: Decreased Operational Costs

Do customers who get assistance from the social media team tend to contact the customer service phone number more or less? It generally costs less to service a customer online than over the phone, depending on the company’s operational setup. Report how many customers were handled, the average time to resolution, the cost and the savings.

#3: Increased Usage of Self-Help Options

Do customers who interact with the social media team use the online customer service option at your website more or less? Online help centers typically facilitate customers finding answers on their own, which is certainly less expensive than a customer calling the service phone number. Report on how many social media customers went to this section of your site versus non-social media customers and show how much the company saved.

#4: Customer Saves

How many complaints were you able to turn into opportunities? I call these saves. They are customers who exhibited some key actions that can lead to a cancellation, but the customer either comes back or doesn’t cancel as a result of social media interaction. These customers are worth money to your company, so make sure to measure their value in your overall return on investment numbers.

#5: Customer Complaints Turned Into Raves

Do social media customers share their experience with others more or less than non-social media customers? What percentage of social media customers are likely to recommend your company to a friend?

Customers who interact with the company on social sites are more likely to have a “viral” tendency and love to share their positive and negative experiences with their friends, followers and fans. How many shared negative comments versus positive comments do you see? How far did they reach?

#6: Cross-sells

Are social media customers more or less likely to buy additional services? How much revenue was generated from cross-sells directly from social media compared to non-social media customers?

#7: Improved Process Innovations

How many issues handled by the social media service team led to process innovations to prevent the issue in the future? How much money will this save the company in lost customers each year? How much money will it save the company in employee time to handle the issues?

Because social media measurement is fairly new and many companies are just getting started, it’s important to measure everything against a control group so you can compare the rates of change.

For those in the early stages of their social media strategy, the numbers may not be “big” yet, but it’s the propensity of the customer to convert better, be more loyal, be more likely to use online resources and tell their friends about their experience that show the short-term and the long-term value for the company. Empowering customers and social media team members to become change agents and spearhead process improvements that will save the company time and money is priceless!

Comcast has a great story of how they’ve turned social media into a customer retention tool. We are all sad to see Frank Eliason leave Comcast, but we are looking forward to seeing great innovations from Citibank as he takes the helm as senior vice president of social media.

Related Articles:

How to Measure Social Media Return on Investment for the Complex Sale
4 Ways to Measure Social Media and Its Impact on Your Brand
How to Measure Social Media Marketing Performance

How are you measuring social media’s impact on customer retention? Did I miss any metrics that are valuable to your firm? What challenges are you facing in your ability to measure? Let us know in the box below.

Photo Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/adriarichards/4370031554/sizes/m/in/photostream/

The real question is how many people are buying what you’re selling?

Unfortunately, getting your blog readers to buy what you’re selling, especially if you run an online business, can be difficult.  This article will reveal a proven technique to turn your blog into a sales engine.

If your social media campaigns are not netting you any cash, then you’ll be out of the game in a hurry.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are great marketing channels, but the blog is king. If you aren’t setting your blog up to convert when new Twitter or Facebook users come your way, then your entire content marketing plan will be in jeopardy.

So what do you do to overcome this? You not only have to find a way to build in social proof, provide a value proposition, craft an offer and convince readers that your product is worthwhile, but you also have to do it in a way that isn’t pushy, doesn’t confuse people and works for you around the clock.

Sounds impossible, right? Wrong.

This article will introduce the concept of using your blog as a lateral sales page.

Leaving Breadcrumbs: An Introduction

Your blog is your content showcase, but it also does more. It functions as a hidden sales agent, ready to market for you.

If you’re selling something, don’t try to force all of the details on a single sales page, blog post or in an email. Why not take Jeff Walker‘s concept of the lateral sales page (once done via email), and apply it to your blog?

It’s simple, really… Define what your blog needs to accomplish, break it into sections and turn those sections into blog posts. You can use a single post for each goal, or you can take your time and work them in on a monthly basis.

The best part about this is that posts don’t have to be in order because there’s no way you can guarantee people will read them in that order; and furthermore, when you introduce them casually, you don’t raise any alarms. You’ve got your audience where you need them, which is focused and attentive.

By doing it right, you’ll slowly work your way into the forefront of your reader’s minds, without having to force your way in.

#1: Create an Offer

For now, stick to the basics. What are you offering (i.e., what is your product?), how much does it cost and what does it include?

Your Product

If you’re blogging already, then you should be talking about your products anyway, but if you aren’t, then start using your blog as a way to describe and explain what you’re offering.

Is it a physical or digital product? Is it something I can download? What does it look like when it arrives at my door?

This part is all about the experience. Use posts like this to help your readers actually visualize owning the product.

The Price

Although you don’t necessarily need to mention price (it should already be listed somewhere on your sales page or shopping cart), you can mention the factors related to price, such as how your product compares to those of your competitors, how important your ingredients or materials are to the value of your product and why the value of your product is far more than a number on a price tag.

The Package

Your product isn’t just a widget, it’s a package or a bundle, right? It’s not just a digital product, but a system… a whole course.

This is also a great time to talk about upgrades, new releases (great for software), trial versions, improvements and any other changes that you make to your lineup. Introduce new products as they come. Create ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Add some flair and spice it up. Get people excited!

37signals has a dedicated product blog that strategically pitches their products without going overboard.

Check out how 37signals does it.

The goal here isn’t to pitch, but to blog about your offer in detail so that you can eliminate this objection right off the bat. Readers won’t buy unless they know exactly what they’re getting, so don’t leave it up to chance.

Notice the call to action at the bottom of the post? This feeds directly into their lateral sales page.

#2: Create Value

Obviously, if you want to convert a reader into a buyer, you’ll need to convince him that your products are worthwhile. You’ve already done half the work by blogging about your offer, and now you’ve got to work to overcome a few objections.

This is where you get to dress it up a bit. Write posts about why your customers can’t live without your product. Provide examples of people who aren’t using it, but could really benefit from doing so.

Build your authority through informative posts and talk about the need for your services. For example, freelancers create need via detailed posts about how to improve design, how to improve copy, or how to build a better application. Internet marketers do this by talking about what could happen if you followed their system.

Online service companies such as 37signals share “insider” industry information and create not just a following, but also a philosophy around their product offerings. It’s even easier with physical products… The classic “before” and “after” shots in weight loss commercials come to mind.

You get the idea.

Feel free to add a call to action at the end of these posts. If you don’t point to the sales page, then point to an opt-in (continue this lateral concept there).

Again, this is where you talk about philosophy.

Are you green, easy to use, complex, efficient, experienced, and so on? What is it that makes your company tick, how does this feed into your product offerings and why should I buy from you instead of your competitor? You could easily write dozens of posts on these topics alone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYNssS_DCPo

#3: Employ Social Proof

Social proof is one of the most important aspects of the blogging sales engine. It’s not essential, but it makes your job easier. It’s also something you should be doing on a constant basis because it creates a culture around your products and in today’s market culture is extremely powerful.

Written testimonials are decent. They’re a start. Most people don’t really believe them, but they like to see them. So if you have them, post them on your blog in a place that’s easy to see. If you don’t have any, then get some.

Video testimonials are even better because we get to see a face. It’s closer to being real. I prefer testimonials that are rough and imperfect because let’s face it, if they’re too polished they’ll look like a late-night infomercial. Nobody believes those are real, do they?

Also, interviews work well too. In fact, interviewing customers is a great way for you to put them in the spotlight. Who wouldn’t like to be on the blog of their favorite company’s website?

Both audio and/or video work well, but it just doesn’t have the same effect.

Another tactic is to post photos of your customers, or even better, of your customers with your product in/on hand. That’s about as real social proof as you can get.

Lastly, as we all know, Tweet streams are extremely useful for showing social proof. “Surely this must be good if everyone is talking about it,” right?

Tweetizen allows you to embed streams, as does TwitStat.us. Strategically placed on a blog or sales page, these streams work as street teams for your product, and they do it 24/7.

Artist John T. Unger has 10 pages of customer photos on his homepage.

#4: Take Your Time

Creating a lateral blogging sales page isn’t a one-time thing, it’s ongoing. If you do it right, you’ll always be selling without having to sell, your customers won’t have their guard up and you’ll still be providing useful information. That’s the goal really, to make use of your blog in a way that maximizes your ROI without making you feel like a marketer… even if you are one.

Just remember that a blog exists to serve one purpose, which is to keep your business in the black.

Are you using your blog to sell? If so, what tips have you discovered? If not, what’s holding you back? Leave your comments in the box below.

Yes, your prospective customers are likely confused and possibly uncertain.

During my 15 years of website strategy and usability work (before I went all “social media” on you), I tried very hard to live by the two-click rule—answering the most common questions customers have about your business on your site within two clicks.

How about zero clicks? Social media makes it possible. The key is to create meaningful content that answers prospects’ questions, and propagate that content throughout the social web, making a visit to your site unnecessary.

Here’s how it works:

#1: Become a Question Detective

First, identify which questions are most important to answer. I recommend starting with six, because it will generate a meaningful amount of content and address the tip of your question iceberg.

You can use a few methods to determine which questions to answer. You can survey your existing customers, although that’s not always the best approach because the questions are not fresh in their minds. They’ve already made their buying decision.

You can study your web analytics to see which pages get the most traffic and which questions are likely to be in prospects’ minds when they are on those pages. Or you could survey website visitors, gathering data in real time.

I also like to look at search data, both the searches that people are conducting about your company on Google (use this free keyword tool), and the searches conducted on your website (assuming you have a search function).

Google's easy-to-use keyword tool shows you the approximate number of times a phrase is searched on Google each month. Note that volume varies widely with just small changes to the search phrase.

I would also make a point to solicit input from customer service and sales teams, as they have more day-to-day interaction with fence-sitters.

#2: Become The Answer Man With Your Blog and Video

Once you’ve identified your top six questions, answer them using new media.

Not in a “here’s our FAQ” way, but in a vigorous, social media way. I recommend answering each question with a dedicated blog post and a video, at minimum. For B2B companies, I would add a short slide presentation that answers each question, and possibly a podcast that answers all six in aggregate.

A Bit About Video

Remember that video is 52 times more likely to show up on the first page of Google search results, so don’t skip that part.

You don’t need a film crew. You don’t need a makeup artist. You need an inexpensive HD camera. (I prefer the Kodak ZI-8 over the FlipHD because it has an external microphone jack. How did I know that? Because Kodak is very adept at the precise strategy we’re discussing here.)

You need some clue about lighting, somebody in your company who’s decent on camera and a loose script. If possible, on-the-scene video showing demonstrations would be great. And if possible, I’d recommend having employees closest to the product (designers, engineers, product marketing and customer service) be the stars of the show, not executives or marketers. It’s just more authentic and believable that way.

#3: Become a Digital Dandelion With Your Content

Take your written and video content, and spread it as widely as possible on the social web. Post it to your Facebook page. Your LinkedIn page. Your blog, naturally. Put it on YouTube of course. Even better, use TubeMogul to syndicate it to dozens of other video sites.

TubeMogul allows you to upload your videos once, and syndicate them across several sites. They also provide statistics for each site to which you upload — and most features are free.

Certainly, link to your content from your corporate website.  But the ideal scenario is that the content performs well enough in search results that potential customers can answer their questions before they ever get to your site.

#4: Improve and Expand

Now that your content is posted to your various social outposts, invite your current customers to make it better. Talk it up on Facebook and your blog. Send it out to existing customers via email, so they can refer fence-sitters to it. Invite current customers to comment on your answers.

Each quarter, commit to answering a few more questions. Involve your customers, and ask them to create their own content that answers other questions (maybe a contest for the best ones).

Now use social listening tools to find blog posts, tweets, forum threads and other discussions about your brand and your products, and as appropriate, direct fence-sitters to your new social media answers.

Now you’re combining content with marketing, social media with customer service. Now you’re using social media to its full advantage.

Give this a try, will you? Have you done any of this?  Share your story and ideas in the comment box below.

Social media goes beyond Facebook or Twitter.  It’s about connecting with people and developing relationships.  And sometimes those connections can be literally face-to-face!

Social media allows us to make connections faster and over greater distances, but there is power in social media to bring us closer to our neighbors, too.  One of the ways to do that is with a Tweetup.

What Is a Tweetup?

There are some things that just can’t be done with a 140-character limit.

A Tweetup is an in-person meeting of Twitter users. It has also become a colloquialism for any in-person networking event organized using social media.

For example, there are lots of events on Facebook that result in large parties. One I was recently involved with is Bring Gary Vaynerchuk to Chicago. The whole thing was organized through Facebook. The end result was to meet Gary in Chicago, along with a lot of other entrepreneurs, networkers and wine lovers.

How Tweetups Benefit Your Business

Obviously Gary benefited from the Facebook event by having a lot of attention drawn to his book. Did anyone else benefit?

On a personal level, Nancy S. (a friend, entrepreneur and wine connoisseur) was inspired by meeting Gary. Nancy has been hesitating about starting a new venture, and gained new confidence from the event.

Kelly Olexa, the event organizer, also benefited by hosting this event. She is now recognized as the person who brought Gary Vaynerchuk to Chicago, and she was able to network with a targeted audience during the event.

The nice thing about a Tweetup is that it doesn’t have to involve a celebrity. The key element to a successful Tweetup is having something people are interested in. Just think of parties you’ve had before and what made them successful. You’ll generally get more people to come when you give them a reason to be there.

We’ll cover how to organize a Tweetup in a second. For now, let’s take a look at three major benefits you get from a Tweetup:

Thought Leadership

This is when people recognize you as a leader and influencer of opinion. Kelly gained credibility as a thought leader by reaching out to Gary and getting him to come to Chicago.

Community-Building

By bringing people together around a common interest, you help them to get to know each other better. Whether it’s a backyard barbecue or a national convention, the most important aspect of any networking event is the conversations and relationships that develop.

Credibility-Building

The person who organizes a Tweetup is recognized as a leader and an expert. In Kelly’s case, her expertise is in media, getting the word out, and organizing events. She was able to capitalize on her complementary interest in wine to develop a major event with Gary.

Other benefits of hosting a Tweetup include:

• Deeper relationships
• New testimonials
• Media exposure
• Lead generation
• Increased sales

Organizing a Tweetup

The first thing to understand about organizing a Tweetup is that it has already been done. There are lots of resources out there for you to use and make it easier for yourself.

Three of those resources are Meetup.com, Eventbrite and Amiando. They all have free elements to their service, and paid components as well.

Meetup allows you to join and participate for free. When you decide to become an organizer for events, there is a subscription fee for accessing those tools. You can subscribe for up to 6 months at a time for $12/month. You can charge for events through Meetup if you want to. They allow you to connect to Amazon Payments and PayPal to collect fees.

The great thing about Meetup is that it announces your new Meetup Group to the community. You just pick a topic, describe your Meetup, and you’re ready to go.

Eventbrite and Amiando are more like Ticketmaster. You can use them to organize events, and when you charge a ticket price they take a percentage of the sales.

Aside from using a service such as Meetup, Eventbrite or even Facebook to organize your event, there are three important organizing elements I want to draw attention to.

#1: Visit the Venue

Especially when you’re hosting the Tweetup at your business location, take time to look at the location from the perspective of guests. You might even ask a couple of friends to give you their opinions.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

• Will guests be able to have conversations without shouting at each other?
• Is there enough light to read business cards?
• Where will refreshments be?

#2: Use Name Tags

Everyone has an online handle, and it’s often different from their real name. Plan to have name tags that show both.

#3: Be Active During the Tweetup

To get the benefits of hosting a Tweetup, guests need to see you and meet you. Make a point of speaking to everyone and introducing yourself.

Stuart Foster wrote an excellent article for Mashable entitled Organize a Successful Tweetup. He outlines 17 things both to do and to avoid when planning and hosting a Tweetup. I suggest you print the article and keep it as a resource, but there’s something else you need to do first.

Networking Before a Tweetup

You’re going to have the most success by making sure you have lots of people to invite. To get a good crowd, you need two things:

1. A local network (not huge – millions or even thousands – a couple of hundred people is plenty)
2. A common interest

The common interest part is fairly easy, and it doesn’t have to be directly related to your business.

When the earthquake struck Haiti, you know a lot of business owners organized fundraising activities. You could easily use status updates, tweets, and email – even the telephone – to reach your network and tell them about an event like that.

The great thing about it is that everyone you tell is definitely going to tell a friend or two. Being able to help others gives everyone a good feeling.

You could be a hardware store owner and still find plenty of common interests for a Tweetup. In spring, organize an event around garden planting. For the do-it-yourself crowd, organize summertime events around barbecuing, deck installations, and landscaping.

Any time you’re stuck for an idea, just pick up the phone and call your best clients. Ask them what they’re interested in and would like to know more about. Finding a common interest is easy. Building a local network is a tiny bit more challenging. And I mean just a tiny bit because there are lots of tools to help you do it.

Naturally you’re going to start with the social media sites you already belong to. Twitter is an excellent one to use, and not just because Twitter developed Tweetups. It’s also because there are several applications and two features in Twitter designed to help. (If you don’t have a Twitter account, here’s an instruction booklet to get you started.)

One feature in Twitter is geotagging. Just login to your Twitter account and go to Settings. Check the box for Geotagging under Locations. Here’s a screenshot to show you what it looks like:

For your own profile, turn geotagging on so other people can find you. For your network, spread the word about geotagging so it becomes easier for you to find other people.

The other feature in Twitter is its Search function. You can type a city and radius into the search field to find local Twitter users. For example, someone in Toronto could type:

Near:Toronto within:50mi

This is going to show you Twitter users living within 50 miles of Toronto.

You can see from the image above that a Twitter search gives you tweets along with who made them. That can be a lot of extra information to sort through. Fortunately, there are some great services out there that help you do the work. Two I particularly enjoy are Twellow and TwitterLocal.

Twellow is yellow pages for Twitter users. You can register for a free account, but you don’t have to be registered to use the service. Twellow is cool because it lets you search Twitter users in several ways. You can search by location, interest, name, and subject, to name a few.

It also has a neat feature called Twellowhood. It lets you zero in on any geographic location in the world. (Remember what I mentioned about geotagging?) You start by picking a continent, then a state or province. When you get to an area that’s small enough – say, Ontario, Canada – Twellowhood gives you a list of cities in that province.

The number beside each city is how many Twitter users are located there. Just click on a city and you’ll get a listing of every local Twitter user.

TwitterLocal is a little different. It’s an Adobe AIR application that you download to your computer.

Once installed, TwitterLocal allows you to filter tweets by location – similar to the Twitter search function I showed you. Obviously this is handy for watching the conversations happening in your area. It can be a great way to get ideas for which common interest to tap into for your next event.

In every case, your goal is to develop new relationships with people in your locale so they can attend your Tweetups.

Keep in mind that your own existing network can help you meet local people, too. Tell them what you are doing and ask your connections to help by introducing you to local people. I was surprised at the people I was introduced to through my own network.

Cooperating With Customers

Social media has become part of our cultural and marketing landscape. We’re also generally social creatures who enjoy meeting new people and making friends.

Hosting a Tweetup allows you to cooperate with your customers to give them three important benefits:

1. They’re learning more about the common interest.
2. Everyone gets to meet new people and be social.
3. Guests develop a deeper relationship with you and your business.

Take your first step today. Pick a common interest and use Twitter to organize a Tweetup with 10 friends. That gives you a doable project with a safe audience. You can build from there.

Have you participated in tweetups? Post your experiences and questions below. And, even more importantly, come back to write about the experiences you have. Let’s make a conversation here that helps everyone build success with social media.

And if you work for a business or own one, it’s likely that social media marketing is on your radar.  More and more marketing dollars are beginning to shift toward social media marketing and this trend only continues to climb.

Here are 5 studies that show how Facebook is undoubtedly a leading online social contender and a key tool that is continually changing the landscape of online engagement and fan loyalty.

#1: Average American Spent 7 hours on Facebook in January

According to recent findings by Nielson Company, Facebook has officially become a favorite pastime for many (but we’ve known that for a while now!).  However, the findings are pretty astounding when you really break it down:

The average time users spend on Facebook is 7 hours per month (a 10% increase).  To put that into perspective, Yahoo! is in second place, but with only 2 hours 28 minutes per month. The fact that people are spending more than 4 hours extra on Facebook compared to leading sites like Yahoo! and Google is information marketers should note when creating their social media campaigns.

This chart shows the breakdown of user time spent on the major sites:

#2: 44% of Social Sharing on the Web Is Driven by Facebook

With the surge of social networking over the past year, we have seen social traffic begin to rival search traffic—and the major players, including Google, are paying close attention to this trend.

TechCrunch recently looked into the services on the web that drive the most sharing and reached out to Gigya for some stats.   What’s Gigya?  Gigya is a company that powers sharing widgets on more than 5,000 content sites, including major players like ABC.com and Reuters. As TechCrunch explains, “Consumers can click a share button on these sites and send an article link, photo, or video via a menu of different services including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Yahoo Mail, Gmail, and AOL. Over the past 30 days, people have shared almost a million items over the Gigya network.”

Based on Gigya’s data, here’s the distribution of shared items on the web:

• Facebook: 44%
• Twitter: 29%
• Yahoo: 18%
• MySpace: 9%

This pie chart, courtesy of TechCrunch, shows the breakdown of social sharing on 4 major sites:

In addition, some other interesting stats from Gigya include:

For share of authentication via news sites, Facebook took 31% while Google was close behind with 30% and Yahoo at 25%.

With entertainment sites, Facebook was the major leader with 52% (Google was second with 17%, Yahoo with 15% and Twitter at 11%).

As we have seen with the popularity of social sites, people like to share links with multiple people at one time, versus just one-on-one via email. Because real results are strongly tied to the amount of online traffic you’re able to generate, it’s important to break down the sources of this traffic when considering where to spend your time and marketing dollars.  These stats shed light on where the action is really happening.

#3: Facebook Yanks Number 2 Spot From Yahoo

According to a Compete.com report, there has been a changing of the guard in the online world. Facebook has surpassed Yahoo, now taking its place as the number-two most popular site in the U.S.  Facebook drew nearly 134 million unique visitors in January 2010. According to the site, “It’s been two full years since we’ve seen a shakeup at the top—In February 2008, Google overtook Yahoo as number one and never looked back. Is Facebook’s next conquest the Google traffic throne?”

Here’s a great chart that shows Facebook’s climb to the coveted #2 spot:

But as we all know, the real dollars are in the engagement—and Compete.com says it best: “Facebook is second to none.” In January, 11.6% of all time spent online was spent on Facebook (compared to 4.25% for Yahoo and 4.1% for Google).  Facebook is in it to win, to say the least!

#4: “Faking It” on Facebook Is Rarer Than Previously Imagined

The findings from a recent research study conducted by the journal Psychological Science, show that instead of “faking it” online, people are much more likely to reveal their true selves online and not the idealized image of who they want to be.

A largely held assumption (supported by analysis) suggests online profiles are less than truthful when looking at true personalities of the users, and the researchers in this study set out to test that hypothesis. “There has been no research on the most fundamental question about OSN (online social networking sites) profiles,” notes the report. “Do they convey accurate impressions of profile owners?”

The conclusion of the report was very surprising to most. The report states, “These results suggest that people are not using their OSN profiles to promote an idealized virtual identity. Instead, OSNs might be an efficient medium for expressing and communicating real personality, which may help explain their popularity.”

The study focused on both MySpace and Facebook; however, the popular site Read Write Web stated that the “real personality” results were more likely to been seen on Facebook than other social sites. They pointed out that because it only allows the use of your legal name and due to its long-standing privacy controls, Facebook “provided its users with a sense of safety, security and comfort—they could be themselves—their real selves, flaws and all, without the world watching.”

#5: Facebook Boosts Sales and Customer Loyalty

The Harvard Business Review recently featured a new study from Utpal Dholakia and Emily Durham of Rice University.  For their study, they asked the question, “How much do businesses really influence consumers when they launch pages on the site to attract ‘fans’ and pepper them with messages and offers?”

To gauge the effectiveness of Facebook fan pages, the study used one company’s page to measure the effect on customer behavior. For the experiment, the researchers partnered with Dessert Gallery (DG), a popular Houston-based bakery and café chain. They first emailed over 13,000 customers from their mailing list to gather store evaluations and information on shopping behavior. Then they launched the fan page and invited the mailing list to the page.  Over the course of three months, the company “updated its page several times a week with pictures of goodies, news about contests and promotions, links to favorable reviews, and introductions to DG employees.”

Three months after that, they resurveyed the fans and here’s the overall result: Facebook changed customer behavior for the better.

Those who had replied to both surveys and had become fans stood out as their best customers. Here’s the breakdown of the findings of their new fans:

• Store visits per month increased after people became fans.
• The new fans generated more positive word of mouth than nonfans.
• They went to DG 20% more often than nonfans.
• Fans gave the store the highest share of their overall dining-out dollars.
• They were the most likely to recommend DG to friends and had the highest average Net Promoter Score—75, compared with 53 for Facebook users who were not fans and 66 for customers not on Facebook.
• DG fans also reported significantly greater emotional attachment to DG—3.4 on a 4-point scale, compared with 3.0 for other customers.
• Fans were the most likely to say they chose DG over other establishments whenever possible.

“We must be cautious in interpreting the study’s results,” Dholakia said. “The fact that only about 5% of the firm’s 13,000 customers became Facebook fans within three months indicates that Facebook fan pages may work best as niche marketing programs targeted to customers who regularly use Facebook. Social media marketing must be employed judiciously with other types of marketing programs.”

But overall, Dholakia stated that the results indicate that Facebook fan pages offer an effective and low-cost way of social media marketing.

Your insight and opinion matter!  What is your opinion of the “power of Facebook”? Do you agree or are you not seeing the same success rates as these studies suggest?  Do you favor another social media tool over Facebook?  I want to hear your insight, so be sure to share here!