Acquiring customers through social media: LinkedIn for B2B, Facebook for B2C
From Infographic: Where Is Inbound Marketing Headed? @ mdfadvertising.com:
For companies that seek to acquire customers through a blog or social media sites, success depends on whether the goal is B2B or B2C. LinkedIn was more succesful for B2B marketing, while Facebook was most succesful for B2C.
ZMOT: the Zero Moment of Truth for consumers’ purchase decisions
Consumers live and learn and make buying decisions today by using a variety of sources:
- ratings and review sites
- friends on social media, at home and on the go,
- (more than ever:) video
They're looking for search results, user reviews, four-star ratings, text ads, image ads, news headlines, videos and even good old-fashioned official brand websites. They're asking answers for three questions about products and services they're considering to buy:
- Will it save me money?
- Will it save me time?
- Will it improve my life?
The First Moment of Truth (FMOT) is when the consumers stands in front of the shelves in the store. In a new eBook, Google employee Jim Lecinsky identifies a Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) just before that.
Some factoids from the eBook:
- a full 70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase
- 79% of consumers now say they use a smartphone to help with shopping
- 83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them
Further reading:
What happens when people follow a brand?
From What makes people want to follow a brand?:
Without a doubt, a positive online brand experience creates loyal customers. As serveral studies have discovered, the majority of consumers who engage with a brand in the digital space - whether by participating in a contest or by "liking" a brand on Facebook - tend not only to purchase the products, but also make recommendatioins to their friends and family.
7 suggestions to keep your Facebook Fans happy
Recently eMarkter updated their charts about the top reasons people became fans of brands on Facebook. Ignitesocialmedia.com points out that the results show a shift from the rather opportunistic "to receive discounts and promotions" to "to get the latest news about the brand".
So what does this mean for Facebook Page administrators? Here are some tips from the Fans in the research - in order of importance:
- Advance information and previews of future products, future offers
- Ability to take part in games, competitions
- Access to exclusive information
- Invitations to events related to the brand beyond Facebook
- Involvement in the development of new products, new offers
- Ability to order products online from the page
- Discussions with brand representatives
What is the real cost of social media?
The true cost of a social media campaign depends on the size and reach of the campaign itself.
Some factors to consider, from The Real Cost of Social Media infographic @ focus.com:
- Staff costs, like your marketer's salary
- Advertising, like Facebook Ads
- External fees
- Other, e.g. tracking tools, technical/creative costs
On the bright side, only half of the respondents of an eMarketers survey felt that "low cost" was a benefit of social media:
Word of the day: SoLoMo (social, location, mobile)
From WordSpy, the Word Lover's guide to new words:
SoLoMo
n. Mobile phone apps that combine social networking and location data. [Social + location (or local) + mobile.]
The term caught my eye in Google Defines Social Strategy at InformationWeek.com:
SoLoMo offers a reminder that data sets do not exist in a vacuum. Search expert and Web 2.0 Conference co-chair John Battelle has described several categories of data that are relevant to Google and its kin: There's the social graph (contacts, friends), interest data (likes, tweets, recommendations), search data (queries, history), purchase data (what you buy, credit card numbers), location data (where you are, have been, and are going), and content data (behavior when engaged with content).
An example: I'm in Diegem, and hungry. I use the Google App on my smartphone to give a "pizza" voice command. The app returns search results for pizza deliveries in a 20 km radius of Diegem, who are open right now, with clickable phone numbers to order and sorted by the amounts of "likes" or ratings from people within my social graph.
Below is a chart that shows how different players in the field are looking for their own value proposition within the SoLoMo space. Anyone know who the author/source is?
40% of Belgian marketers not satisfied with results of social media activities
From The House of Marketing's Yearly marketing survey 2011:
[Belgian] marketers really need to bring their knowledge of social media up to speed. Although they’re convinced of the usefulness of social media and they really want to invest in dialogue with the consumer, they lack basic competences to create content, to concretely handle the conversation and to analyze the results. Almost 40% of marketers are not really satisfied with the results of their social media activities, and even more, almost 60%, state that they do not know the Return On Marketing Investment (ROMI) of these activities. Probably, the low satisfaction rate is strongly linked to this lack of knowledge of ROMI.
Further reading:
- Yearly marketing survey 2011 Booklet (pdf 16 MB)
- Yearly marketing survey 2011 Slides (PDF 1 MB)
- Persbericht / Communiqué de presse
Social media marketing ROI: recommendations from Forrester
Recommendations from Forrester Consulting Report: The ROI of Social Media Marketing:
Social media can deliver business results, but to validate your social media efforts requires a combination of approaches:
[...]
- Eliminate financial measures that are not direct and attributable. Sales are an important metric, but if financial results are not immediately and apparently associated with social media efforts, do not use proxies to convert nonfinancial results into financial equivalents. Instead, transition your metrics to the other perspectives.
- Do not rely on just one or two perspectives. While financial and digital efforts are easiest to measure, do not neglect the vital benefits delivered by the brand and risk management perspectives. You cannot assess properly and thoroughly your social media marketing programs without the long-term value delivered by these perspectives.
- Don’t use the term “ROI” unless you are referencing financial returns. ROI has an established and understood meaning — it is a financial measure, not a synonym for the word “results.” Marketers who promise ROI may be setting expectations that cannot be delivered by social measures.
Further reading: