What's a Facebook 'like' worth?

What's the tangible, money-in-the-bank benefit of a Facebook follower? Social marketing mavens have pondered the question for years and we're still not any closer to a hard answer. Facebook last month swept fake "Likes" from its pages, to the chagrin of spammers. But do efforts at gaming the social network even pay off? If you're using Facebook for legitimate marketing, what's the ROI of having virtual fans?

Depending on who you ask and the metrics you use, a Facebook follower could be worth nothing at all, as little as $3.60, as much as $22.93, exactly $136.38 more than a non-follower, or a whopping $214.81 for a nonprofit organization.

That's a lot of numbers—and a gaping variation in the value of a "Like." Where does the truth lie?

Ecwid, an e-shopping cart provider and the self-proclaimed "second largest store-building application on Facebook," explored the data from the 40,000-plus Facebook stores that run on its software to try and determine the answer. The results Ecwid provided me are far from definitive, but they sure are interesting.

Are fake followers worth the money?

Sales and 'Likes'

Ecwid took the 12-month cumulative sales from the storefronts that use its software, then compared the total against each store's number of "Likes." The baseline provides some insight in and of itself: on average, each Facebook "Like" equated to just 21 cents in annual sales.

Drilling down further revealed intriguing details. For the top ten percent of stores by sales volume, the value of a "Like" increased to $1.20 a pop, soaring to $21.49 in the top one percent of stores. Some retailers obviously have some sort of secret sauce when it comes to engaging an audience and converting engagement into sales. One study showed that only 1 percent of Facebook fans interact with the brands they follow; I'm guessing those top stores keep things lively.


But do more "Likes" mean more sales? Not according to Ecwid's figures. In fact, the 25 percent of Ecwid-powered storefronts with the most "Likes" only earned 13 cents per "Like" per year, dropping to a paltry penny for the one percent of stores with the most fans. Neither of those numbers comes close to meeting the 21-cents-per-"Like" baseline average.  

Ecwid's study included data from over 40,000 Facebook storefronts.

So What Does It All Mean?

Nothing of definite value, unfortunately, aside from that there's no definitive correlation between a "Like" and sales volume. Even that axiom isn't hard-set; a store with a million "Likes" will very likely sell more product than a store with 100 "Likes," after all.

That kind of dangerous thinking could lead a business to sip from the black-hat, social SEO Kool-Aid, but Ecwid's data shows that a torrent of "Likes" alone won't translate into sales; you aren't likely to see a good return on investment if you shell out company money for false "Likes" and inflated follower counts. I think Forrester's Augie Ray nailed it when he said that a Facebook "Like" is chock full of potential value, but very little real-world value—virtually none, in fact—until your nurture that connection.

No comments

Posted at 09:00 |  by Unknown

How Social Is Your Culture?

I've ranted before against the perils of delegated social strategies. You know: Management decides it's time to get into social media, and appoints some whippersnapper to the task. The potential perils with this approach are many and severe, but even under good circumstances, this approach comes with a steep lost-opportunity cost. And that -- even if we ignore all the ways a lone-gunman social strategy can backfire on a good company -- is a very compelling reason to spend less energy thinking about your business's social strategy and more energy thinking about your company's social culture.

In a delightfully insightful opinion post on Fast Company last week, Bulldog Drummond CEO Shawn Parr advanced the observation that "culture eats strategy for lunch." The point, in brief, is that no matter how much strategic thinking you do, the culture of your company will either bolster your success or unravel your elegantly wrought plans. And while Parr didn't talk about social specifically, it occurred to me that this is a great opportunity for some dialog about the overwhelming impact of company culture on the effectiveness of social campaigns.

Good leaders know how to delegate, so there's no great shock in the observation that most business leaders offload social media projects to underlings, henchmen, and Twitter-savvy interns. But as in so many areas of 21st-century business, the anachronistic nature of the social web has changed the rules and turned the delegation instinct into a liability.

Here's why:

The kinds of interactions that build really valuable relationships -- as opposed to canned or forced marketing messages -- between brands and their followers require a real connection to the people behind the brand. At the very least, that means that the people whose fingertips are typing out tweets and responding to users in forums and other online communities need to have the power and autonomy to respond as directly and effectively as possible to your customers on the web. In a more ideal scenario, it means the CEO should be one of those people, monitoring the socialverse and representing the brand through direct engagement.

Does that mean the top brass should redirect all its energies to surfing Twitter and Facebook feeds? Of course not. But there's no question that when business leadership is in the loop on social activity as a matter of daily business, companies are more effective at responding to crises and opportunities in the social sphere. Conversely, in my observation, if your top executives aren't directly involved in your social efforts, your company's prospects for social success are limited.
Cross Department Lines

Realistically, though, executives can only do so much, and your CEO can't tackle the social web alone any better than that one intern in Marketing can. To ensure social responsiveness, you need to get people involved from all areas of your business and empower your social listening team to enlist help from anyone -- absolutely anyone -- within your organization.

On a recent visit to Round Rock, Texas, I spent some time in Dell's Social Media Command Center and had some enlightening conversations with the team responsible for responding to the company's customers on the web. The most striking thing I noticed -- apart from the NORAD-style wall of monitors awash in Radian6 social maps -- is that, for such a large company, Dell's social media team is anything but siloed.

Dell Social Media Command Center 

Rather than simply leave social response to the social media response team, Dell empowers its social team to call in engineers, sales people, shipping and fulfillment workers, and even executives to respond to issues as they arise on the social web. So if a customer has a strange problem with their laptop and doesn't get satisfaction from the tech support line, Dell can intercept that customer's complaint on Twitter and bring in an engineer who actually worked on that laptop's design to respond and solve the problem. It's a sound strategy that acknowledges how disgruntled customers use social media, and helps the company respond intelligently to inevitable gripes on Twitter and other social forums.

You don't have to be a $40-billion company to execute a strategy like this. Even if your social command center is really just one person listening watching for brand mentions on Twitter and the web during the course of their workday, you can empower that person to call in the big guns from across your organization whenever a customer needs attention. The cost of doing so is almost certain to be small -- usually just the time it takes for a department head to read a tweet and type a reply. The cost of not doing it could be (as dozens of blundering brands have already demonstrated) days of lost productivity for your leadership as you scramble to make up for an otherwise avoidable mistake.

Business is inherently social, and business in the online age demands a strategy for social media. If your business isn't already going social from top to bottom, it's time to get your leadership up to speed.

No comments

Posted at 06:34 |  by Unknown

5 Components of a Social Media Governance Model

Even as social media presents unprecedented business opportunities for marketing, customer service, brand building and consumer relationships, many organizations are still struggling to embrace it for fear that it negatively effects worker productivity or puts the company at risk. A 2011 survey by Society for Human Resource Management reveals that 43% of businesses block access to social media on company-owned computers or handheld devices.

Rather than policing employees, these organizations would be better served by a social media governance model -- a collection of policies, procedures and educational resources that allow you to manage social media internally. A sound social media governance model empowers your employees while keeping them accountable. It allows you to quickly recover from a blow to your brand, or even sidestep it completely. It helps you keep your social initiatives on track and aligned with your business’ strategic goals.

While many of the elements of a social media governance model will vary across industries and organizations, here are five fundamental components that should be part of any plan.

Social Media Policy

A social media policy is the foundation of any social media governance model. Its purpose is twofold: to guide your employees and to protect your organization and your customers from risk. You should have a social media policy regardless of whether or not your business is actively engaged in a social media strategy. Facebook is on target to hit one billion users this year, and Twitter will soon have 500 million. Many of them are your employees, customers and competitors.

At a bare minimum your social media policy should include specific guidelines for each of the top three platforms: Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. But though social media has become synonymous with that trio of powerhouses, the landscape is vast, encompassing blogs, wikis, podcasts, video sharing, microblogging, community forums and other tools. While it’s not necessary to develop a set of best practices for each of them, you should have a clear and consistent set of expectations that covers all your organization’s primary social channels.

Training

Earlier this year the Richmond Police Department found itself at the center of a controversy when one of its officers Tweeted threats of violence against members of the Anonymous hacking group in response to an attack on an Ultimate Fighting Championship website. The resulting flood of angry comments from the public prompted the Richmond P.D. to temporarily to disable comments on its Facebook page and ultimately led to an investigation of the officer.

This incident underscores a reality of the social media era: Every employee is a PR person, and it only takes one rogue Tweet or Facebook post to unravel your brand image. This makes training an essential part of any governance model. Without the proper resources to educate employees how to represent your organization on the social web, your social media policy is useless.

Monitoring

Nokia recently installed a Mission Control style social media monitoring station of six LCD screens in the lobby of its headquarters so that any employee can see in real time online conversations around the brand. This ambitious move underscores the importance of gathering and sharing information from the social web to help shape your strategies.

Your brand is likely being discussed on the social web whether you’re engaged in the conversation or not. It’s imperative you tune in to the chatter. Twitter and Google alerts offer simple ways to search for the names of your brand, your employees and your competitors. Social Media Monitoring tools like Radian 6, Sysomos and HootSuite offer more robust tools for acquiring, analyzing and acting on intelligence. Regardless of the tool you use, monitoring is a must for everything from shaping consumer sentiment about your brand to heading off a potential PR crisis.

Crisis Management Plan

In 2009, Toyota launched the largest recall in the company’s history in response to hundreds of reported cases of sticking accelerator pedals. The problem was caused by the pedal getting caught in the floor mat, making affected vehicles speed up uncontrollably, and it was linked to at least 50 reported fatalities. Rumors and panic spread across the web, and suddenly the brand, a model of automotive safety for decades, was embroiled in a digital disaster with little foundation in social media with which to combat it.

A PR crisis doesn’t have to be as dramatic as Toyota’s to be damaging. The Toyota recall illustrates a common thread that runs through all PR crises: a slow response from the organization exacerbates the crisis. At its basic level, your crisis management plan should outline how to use your social media channels to deliver a quick and appropriate response.

Toyota eventually turned to social media to repair its image, but its effort would have no doubt been more effective if it could have been leveraged to diffuse the controversy before it spiraled out of control.

Frequent Updates

A social governance model isn’t something to be stuck in a binder and shelved -- it’s a living system. The social media landscape is evolving at lightning speed, and your policies and best practices should evolve right along with it. Designate a social media governance team and a frequency for re-evaluating all elements of your governance model to assure it's never outdated.

No comments

Posted at 05:58 |  by Unknown

LogMeIn limits freeloaders to 10 PCs. So what?

A little over a week ago, LogMeIn Product Specialist Sean Keough announced a change to the company's LogMeIn Free remote-access product: Instead of using it on unlimited PCs, customers would be limited to 10 PCs each.

As a longtime fan of LogMeIn Free and a self-proclaimed cheapskate, you'd think I'd be outraged by this decision, as lots of other users have proclaimed to be. (Look no further than the comments section beneath Keough's post.)

Quite the opposite: I say, good for LogMeIn. The free ride isn't over, it's just no longer available to mid-size businesses that should have been paying for LMI to begin with. (LogMeIn Free is really intended as a consumer product, though no doubt some businesses have leveraged it for work purposes.)

The mistake LMI made was allowing unlimited PCs from the start. I think there's such a thing as "too much free," and that many of us have grown spoiled by all the gratis goods and services available nowadays—to the detriment of development and innovation. Hence the backlash: Once you give people something for free, it's awfully hard to get them to start paying for it.

LogMeIn all but pioneered the remote-access category, making it possible to connect to and control distant PCs, thus avoiding the hair-pulling nightmare that is phone-based tech support. I've used it myself countless times to help friends and family members troubleshoot PC problems. And I've loved it for that.

But the remote-access field is now crowded with competitors, and if LMI wants to stay in it for the long haul, they have every right to nudge users toward paid versions—in this case LogMeIn Central, which costs $299 annually. That's just under $25 per month, which shouldn't break the bank for any small business.

Still not convinced? No doubt you've started looking at other free remote-access tools, like CrossLoop and TeamViewer. But guess what? CrossLoop limits you to one PC unless you go Pro. And TeamViewer Free is expressly "for private use," meaning you're not supposed to use it in business at all. If you want a paid license, it'll cost you a whopping $749 (which, admittedly, is for a lifetime license).

The switch to a 10-PC limit may prove painful for some LMI users, but the reality is that some services are worth paying for, especially if you want them to continue to exist. Before you start grumbling about the cost, ask yourself how much money you've already saved. The answer may surprise you.

No comments

Posted at 05:35 |  by Unknown

How To add a "Click to Tweet" link to Quotes within your posts?

Tweet buttons on a website allows users to tweet the link to a post or page, along with its entire meta title. But the title isn't always what you want users to tweet, since it is designed with SEO in mind, and could look unseemly and out of place on Twitter. Instead, you might want users to tweet about an interesting fact, a quote or an opinion. Wouldn't it be cool if users could simply tweet that specific quote or fact by just clicking on a link or button? Check out how to create "Click to Tweet" links for quotes within your posts or pages.

ClickToTweet

ClickToTweet is a small online tool that will let you easily create tweet-able text. Before you use it, you first need to have your content ready.
For example, let's say you are writing a post on some Facebook statistics, and you have a stat that says something like;

                  The total number of Facebook likes since launch is over 1.13 Trillion 

...and you want users to tweet this interesting figure.

• First, get your text ready (it would be very similar to the quote I've written above, with only a slight difference. For example, "Did you know, since its Launch, the total number of Facebook likes has crossed 1.13 Trillion!"
• Next, generate a shortlink to your article, or a section of your article. You can use any of the shortening services such as Bitly.
• Next, take your text, your short link, and your twitter name, and combine it, making sure it all looks like a tweet, and fits into 140 characters. It could look something like this;
  
  Did you know, since its Launch, the total number of Facebook likes has crossed 1.13 Trillion! http://bit.ly/VoG2JP (via @qasimzaib)
• Paste this into the ClickToTweet text area, and click on the Generate Link button. 
• You will get a link which you can paste wherever you want in your post. Mine looks like this; http://clicktotweet.com/JSsTf. Let's go ahead and test it out. Check out the final implementation of this nice little feature below.
• The total number of Facebook likes since launch is over 1.13 Trillion (click to Tweet this figure)

If you click on the tweet link, you'll see that you'll be prompted to tweet it just the way we wanted above. Just try it out!

No comments

Posted at 10:39 |  by Unknown