Social Equity Archives

Social Equity

Social Equity: LinkedIn and Your Business

March 15, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social Equity is given quite a boost with a LinkedIn presence – and not just for B2B companies.

LinkedIn is widely known as the professional social network. So, it would make sense for people to assume that it is largely for B2B companies. While it is true that LinkedIn is one of the most beneficial social networks when it comes to B2B, the Social Equity a brand can garner as a result of having a LinkedIn presence – whether it is B2B or B2C – is quite high.

Today, we aim to explain where the Social Equity of a LinkedIn presence is found, and how you can determine the value added to your business as a result of having both a personal and company page on the social network.

The Benefits of LinkedIn

To understand how we can derive Social Equity from LinkedIn, we first need to understand what the benefits of a LinkedIn presence are to our business.

As we noted above, LinkedIn is often perceived as the professional network. As such, it is an arena in which professionals actively seek out industry influencers, leaders and authority figures. Therefore, it is one of the easiest niches in which to establish yourself as an industry-leader within your market. Social networks on the more general scale, like Facebook and Twitter, are mediums in which we can establish our brand as an authority with the general public, but for any company, be it B2C or B2B, LinkedIn is the best avenue through which we can build our credibility with members of our own industry.

On the other side of the spectrum, LinkedIn is an excellent network for seeking out the advice and tips of other leaders and professionals, and applying those bits of advice to our own strategies. Though LinkedIn Answers was a great feature in which to do this before it was removed, LinkedIn Groups are still a powerful tool, and include higher engagement rates than almost any other feature on social media. Contrary to many social networks, LinkedIn is a place where professionals are seeking out the opinions and inputs of others, and the element of self-promotion (not in its purest form, but close to it) is not only accepted, but in many cases encouraged.

So, how does this all add value to your business?

Social Equity Derived from LinkedIn

Having both a personal account and an active company page on LinkedIn can generate quite a bit of Social Equity for your brand. With a well-orchestrated strategy in place, we can quickly build our authority in a given field and begin driving referrals to both our personal pages and our websites. This holds true for both types of businesses. Even as a B2C entity, we are still looking to build market authority, and LinkedIn is one way of doing that.

Say you are a local and online retail store, for example. Now say you create a profile on LinkedIn and begin sharing short articles you write about running a successful retail location, or a successful e-commerce website. By posting to your updates (your network), your company page and your groups pages about the retail industry, you will quickly see your influence, network and, most important for building business, your LinkedIn referral traffic begin to shoot up.

It is important to understand that in any industry, people want to associate themselves with the best. Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a retail-savvy basement blogger, industry leaders and influencers receive the most attention on a network like LinkedIn, and that translates to Social Equity.

The value added of a large professional and referral network is highly coveted. Consider not only the calculated value of your business assets, but the value added of an extended network, an established industry leader at the helm of your company and your industry influence. All of this is capable through the strategic use of LinkedIn.

How are you using LinkedIn to generate Social Equity for your business? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media ROI: What to Measure

March 11, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Measuring social media return on investment (ROI) is one of the biggest grey areas when it comes to this emerging market, so what is important to look at when it comes to measuring social media ROI?

Social media return on investment is constantly a point of concern for executives and skeptics when it comes to launching a social media program. The irony, however, is that many of these skeptics claim that there is no means of measuring social media ROI when the fact of the matter is that, unlike many forms of marketing, every aspect of a social media program can be monitored and measured. The complexity of social media ROI factors in when one cannot decide how one wants to measure the success of a campaign (e.g. monetization of a fan base, growth of a fan base, increase in traffic, etc.).

There are several angles from which one can look at social media ROI, and what we describe below are just a few. That said, we think these are some of the best ways to measure the success of a social media program.

Social Media Cost-Benefit Analysis

In the field of Economics, a Cost-Benefit analysis is one of the most common ways of measuring the return of a program. What is important to note is that a C-B analysis looks not only at what might be gained from taking an action, but also what one stands to lose by not taking said action.

Say, for example, you calculate that an unattended social media PR crisis costs your business $10,000 in lost sales, brand tarnishing, etc., and that your brand unknowingly suffers two to three of these crises per year. That’s a calculated loss of $20,000-$30,000 every year as a direct result of not attending to your customers on social media. Now, say that you put together a social media program designed to engage with dissatisfied users and help them solve their issues on the very public sphere that is social media. The result is not only the retention of a customer, but the build up of brand loyalty through social media.

Now, it would not exactly be feasible to suggest that social media engagement in the time of crisis will mean retaining every calculated dollar lost from not engaging on social media, but if you retain half of those lost earnings ($10,000-$15,000) and you are spending $700 per month on a small, customer-oriented social media program, you are looking at a yearly return measured as follows:

While this is a very black-and-white example, measuring a social media program’s ROI can be as simple as a C-B analysis.

Setting Social Media Goals

On the less technical front, you might want to consider measuring your social media success through the use of established goals that you lay out at every stage of the program. These do not necessarily have to be monetary returns. In fact, one way of measuring the success of your social program is by measuring the growth and extension of your network. Effectively, the growth of your social network translates into the growth of your pool of leads.

So when building your social media strategy, create a set of goals that you would like to achieve and measure your returns by the growth of your networks. From there, once your networks have grown to your satisfaction, you can consider this next form of social media ROI.

Return of Campaigns

You may be focused entirely on the monetization of your social media program. That’s fine. Businesses aim to be as profitable as possible, and there’s no better way to measure profit than with monetary gains. So the final and most straightforward way you can go about measuring the ROI of your social program is through the monitoring of returns from your campaigns. Be careful, however. There is something that a lot of people overlook when it comes to measuring the monetary returns from converting a client. This once again factors into a Cost-Benefit analysis.

Say you have managed to convert a lead into a client on social media. Well done! Now let’s say that this client has a lifetime value (LTV) of $120 with three $40 purchases. Then let’s say it cost you $50 to convert this client (between time, resources, expenses, etc.). You’re looking at a healthy lifetime profit of the converted client with a value of $70. Way to go! Now, let’s look at the alternative – this is where people often lose out without even realizing it.

Let’s say you spend that same $50 to convert a lead into a client on social media, but now, a client’s LTV is a one-time purchase of $40. This means that for every client you convert, you are losing $10. So the more conversions you see, the more money you lose.

It is extremely important that we measure not only how much we are making when it comes to social media, but how much we are spending. And this includes time (our most precious resource), expenses, opportunity costs, etc. If we are only measuring the returns and not the costs, we are missing the entire concept of profitability. So keep that in mind when you are measuring the success of your social campaigns.

How do you measure the ROI of your social media programs? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: The Benefits of a Twitter Presence

March 8, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social equity garnered as a result of a Twitter presence stands to add quite a bit of value to your brand.

As with any social network, Twitter adds an entirely new degree of Social Equity to your business. However, where Twitter differs with regards to the Social Equity added to a brand is the ability to use it as a broadcast medium (to a degree) which makes it unique when it comes to social networks.

There are a few statistics of note with regards to the demographics and business capabilities of Twitter. Let us first begin by examining these figures, then incorporate the numbers into our discussion of Social Equity derived from a Twitter presence.

Interesting Facts and Figures

On Twitter, American users have a higher median income than the average American population – the largest demographic with regards to income falls in the $50K-$75K range. Furthermore, more than half of the 500 million Twitter users follow a brand, company or product.

With regards to business, 79% of US-based Twitter users are more likely to recommend a brand or store they follow, and 67% of US-based users are more likely to buy from a brand or store they follow on Twitter. How does this translate? Companies using Twitter average twice as many leads per month than those that do not. This is especially true for B2C companies. Those with more than 100 followers (not a difficult goal to reach with a proper strategy in place) have 146% more leads per month because of their activity on Twitter.

Lastly, 58% of consumers following a brand on Twitter say they have praised a brand or company for a product, service or interaction.

Social Equity Derived from Twitter

As a pseudo-broadcast medium, Twitter allows brands to both engage with users and market themselves on the social network. It is for that reason that we see the numbers above. Twitter allows brands to engage with users talking about their niche, establish themselves as experts or industry leaders and drive conversions directly from the network.

Effectively, what this means is that Twitter is a realm in which brands can target leads and work to drive conversion all in one space. Granted, the main goal of Twitter should not be to market your brand. That is an added benefit of the network. The real goal should be to build your brand’s authority, which in turn will result in increased leads and conversions.

With regards to Social Equity, Twitter acts as an international platform on which to grow your brand’s reputation both on the widespread market and on an individual basis. The figures above suggest that Twitter is a medium in which people seek out industry leading brands and not only do two-thirds of these users have the potential to convert, but nearly four-fifths are going to recommend these brands to their peers.

As we noted in last week’s Social Equity segment on Facebook, true equity can be measured not only in the value added, but also in the losses incurred as a result of not having a presence on Twitter. With such a vast marketplace at your fingertips and the ability to grow your brand’s authority on both the personal and overarching levels, it seems almost counter-intuitive to not have a presence on Twitter.

Do you use Twitter to engage with your audience? How are you measuring the Social Equity derived from a Twitter presence? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: Having a Facebook Presence

March 1, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social equity comes in many forms, and a Facebook presence can greatly enhance your business.

What value does a Facebook fan page and community add to your social equity? This is an important question that must be answered if we are to delve deeper into the social network to measure other features of Facebook and determine how they impact social equity (e.g. campaigns, offers, promotions, etc.).

In today’s post about social media equity, we are looking to explain exactly what it is a Facebook presence offers your business in the way of value added.

The Value Lost Without Facebook

Measuring social equity and the return of social media is not as conventional a measurement as other forms of marketing and business. In fact, due to the fact that every aspect of social media marketing can be measured, it is quite different (in a much better way). So, to understand what value a Facebook presence adds to your business, we may want to consider, first, what value is lost (or overlooked) if our brand does not have a Facebook presence.

Let us first look at the added search engine optimization (SEO) value that comes with Facebook. In a post a little while back, we explained how social signals factor into SEO. Below is the graph that shows some of the most heavily weighted criteria when it comes to SEO:

What are the top five criteria when it comes to SEO and social media? Four of them relate to Facebook. So the first aspect to consider as far as social equity of a Facebook presence is concerned is SEO. We lose some of the most important SEO criteria without a Facebook presence, rendering many of our other SEO efforts much less viable.

Second, a Facebook presence is as important as a web presence. Early on in the age of the Internet, there were those who believed that a web presence was only viable for those high tech-industry businesses. Over the course of the last few years, every business, large or small, has taken to the web to promote their businesses to both a local and international audience. The same is true for Facebook today. The ability to tout your business across a multitude of markets and expand your business drastically is as true with Facebook as it is with a website, if not more so. Facebook is all about being social. And, more importantly, unlike the seemingly endless web, Facebook has boundaries in which users are confined when using it. So, unlike a website, where people may not find you at the speed at which you may have hoped, the ability to become a viral sensation in the world of social media is much easier.

Furthermore, Facebook pages have undergone dramatic overhauls in the last few years. Facebook was the first social network to recognize its own importance to businesses, and has made adjustments accordingly. So in addition to SEO opportunities that reach outside of Facebook, there is also the ability to showcase every aspect about your company and build a corporate personality with which a customer base want to engage.

What is the Social Equity of a Facebook Presence?

As we can see from the lost value above, the social equity of a simple presence on Facebook is tremendous. So in addition to the SEO opportunities that come with Facebook, and the ability to showcase our brand, what else is added with regards to social equity when it comes to Facebook?

Perhaps the best way to determine the value added of a Facebook presence is through the use of statistics. 20% of Facebook users have purchased something because of ads or comments they saw on the social network. In a market of one billion accounts (with hundreds of millions of regularly active users) those are strong numbers. Second, in a recent survey conducted by HubSpot, they noted that 77% of B2C companies acquired a customer through Facebook while 43% of B2B companies acquired a customer through Facebook. (NOTE: For brands in the retail industry, over 90% of those with a Facebook presence reported acquiring a customer from the network.)

According to that same HubSpot survey, 80% of social network users prefer to connect to brands on Facebook. Lastly, the two areas in which brands saw the greatest benefits from Facebook in the last year were in increased brand exposure (nearly 90%) and increased traffic (nearly 70%).

Not all of us are as lucky as a Coca-Cola or a Harley Davidson; we do not have lifelong brand loyalty, or are internationally recognized and respected brands. We need to work hard to retain customers, build loyalty and increase brand awareness. So where does the social equity of Faceobok lie? It has to do with increasing your brand awareness, reputation and loyalty.

Where do you see social equity fitting in with your Facebook efforts? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Media Measurement [INFOGRAPHIC]

February 28, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social media is an important tool to help grow your business, but like any business tool, you need to be able to measure it!

Unlike many other business tools, however, social media is not only measurable, but easily measurable. There are a number of analytics tools, some add-ons and others built into the networks themselves, that can be used to measure the success of a social media campaign. These analytics can help you enhance or modify your social media program in order to generate the highest returns on your investment.

Yet, even with all of these tools, people are still looking for ways to measure their social media in a more tangible way. This great infographic from MediaZo details how exactly some of the most important elements of a social media program’s returns can be measured and analyzed.

Have a look below and let us know what you think.

How are you measuring your social media programs? What do you consider ROI on social media? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

Social Equity: What Is It?

February 22, 2013/by Corey Padveen

Social equity is a new phenomenon in the world of business, and though it is powerful, few people understand it.

What is social equity? Social equity can be many things. There is social equity in every aspect of your social media program. It can range from the value added from a Facebook campaign, to the overall value added to your business as a result of being social. Effectively, social equity is the yet to be determined value added to your business that an effective and powerful social media strategy brings to your brand over time. It is your long term social media ROI (return on investment).

Each Friday, we will be discussing social equity as it pertains to different aspects of a social media program and outlining exactly how value is added to a company as a result of being social. This week, as an introduction, we aim to simply define social equity in its most basic form, and give some applicable examples that make it easier to understand.

What is Business Equity?

According to the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), business equity is defined as follows: “The interests, benefits, and rights inherent in the ownership of a business enterprise or a part thereof in any form (including, but not necessarily limited to, capital stock, partnership interests, cooperatives, sole proprietorships, options, and warrants).” Effectively, business equity is the value of all the individual assets held by a business.

So, taking from this definition, how can we properly define the phenomenon of social equity?

Defining Social Equity

So with an understanding of business equity, we can surmise that social equity pertains to the value added to a business as a result of social activity, success, networks and reputation. Brand awareness on social media can give any company, large or small, a worldwide audience. Whether or not these are direct clients, the fact that your brand loyalty exists beyond your immediate network can mean a tremendous value to your business, and that is where social equity fits into the model. Let’s take a look at an example.

Social Equity Example: The Dentist

Say, for example, you are a dentist with a stable local practice. The goal, when you retire, is to sell that practice to a colleague. Where does the value of a dentistry practice exist? It exists in his or her client list. Essentially, you are selling your clients to another dentist who stands to generate revenues from this new client base.

Now imagine you are a dentist with a stable local practice and an immense social network on everything from Facebook to YouTube. You are an authority figure when it comes to tips on oral health and you generate referrals from your social network when people are visiting town or moving. This extends even further when people recommend you to a friend as a result of following you on social media. Now, when you retire, think of the value added to your business as a result of having that much more of a network to sell. It is not only about the physical client database anymore, it is about the virtual, social client database that comes with it.

Social equity is about the growth of your brand and business as a result of being social, and less about conventional measurements of ROI. With a new form of marketing media, there are going to be new forms of measurement. Social equity is one of those new measurements.

Stay tuned each Friday for more information on the phenomenon of social equity. Have you ever considered the concept of social equity? How would you define it? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!

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