Social media created a lot of buzz and controversy in the past several years. But the main question remains: “Does it have an impact on sales?” And what effect does it have of marketing?

Two studies that were done this year aim to answer this question.

According to Ogilvy’s recent study “Does investing in social media create business value?” social media does indeed has a strong impact on sales as well as brand perception.

Main points of the study:

-          Social media exposure is directly linked with increases in sales. Integrated social media (social content + one or more channels) exposure is linked with significant increases in spend and consumption – for example, social media + PR exposure was associated with a 17% spend increase compared to the prior time period without these.

• People who were exposed to social media + PR increased their spending by 17% over the previous time period
• People who were exposed to social media + TV were twice as likely to buy
• People who were exposed to social media were 7 times more likely to spend more
• Social media + OOH exposure was linked to 1.5X higher likelihood of increase in spend
• Exposure to multiple channels was most often associated with sales impact

-          Integration matters. Exposure to social content was most consistently effective when it was combined with exposure to other types of media channels.

-          Social media is the top driver of impact. Out of 20 channels analyzed, social media was number 1 or number 2 in magnitude of impact on spend and consumption.

-          Social media exposure is directly linked with changes in brand perception. Social media by itself is particularly effective and appears strongest at rapidly impacting brand perception.

As marketers we consistently ask ourselves what value social media brings to us internally. According to eMarketer, recent study by CMO Council and social CRM firm Lithium aimed to answer those questions.

The study found that in addition to building loyalty among customers, social media outreach has influenced marketing operations. Of those marketers surveyed, 55% said social media improved customer listening, engagement and conversations, and another 55% said it opened new avenues to gather and further market insights. 5% said it helped lower the cost of customer service.

I believe that social media done right does have a big positive impact on business value as well as help marketers build meaningful approach to relationship-building with their customers.

There are two sides to the ROI. The hard numbers in one.  And if you measure it right you will see increase in sales through social media like Dell saw on their @DellOutlet account or reduction in cost like multiple brands are seeing as they introduce blogs and communities that help answer questions with higher accuracy than your customer service every could. But there is also the soft side to it. And even though that is where the value is very hard to measure this is the most important, the most emotional, the most lasting attachment you as a marketer can help build for your brand.

Operationally I believe that social brings enormous amount of value to us marketers. Besides the reasons listed above, it also helps change our sometimes ‘drive-by’ thinking and allows us to focus on building long-term relationships. At the same time it urges us to shift to agile, real-time marketing. In the new social economy the best marketers are those who are not spending more than 3-4 weeks to build a campaign and are savvy enough to take advantage of hot trends and opportunistic approaches. In this day and age successful marketers are also those who are not afraid to reach into the wisdom of the crowd and co-create their brands together with their customers.

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We know that our customers talk about us, brands.  According to the Keller Fay Group the average American consumer mentions specific brand names 60 times per week in conversations. And since most of them happen online and, frankly, it is easier to track them online, we understandably are in awe of social media that focuses on online conversations. We analyze and pay attention to online influencers and focus on numbers of fans and followers. But what we forget is that less than 10% of word of mouth conversations happen online. Keller Fay stats dating back to 2006 have consistently shown word of mouth conversations disproportionately happen offline in face-to-face and voice-to-voice settings.  90% of all conversations Americans have about products/services and brands taking place offline is a startling statistic. Is it possible that we are focusing too much on influencers and ignoring a ‘regular’ consumer?

We all hear those amazing stories of extraordinary customer service. Zappos, for example, is continuously cited as the leader in this department. Whether you are looking for shoes or the closest pizza joint, you will get help in finding it if you call Zappos. However, the unfortunate truth is that most of us have not experienced it very often. What’s more disappointing is that some of us have never experienced it.

For my mother-in-law it took 68 years to encounter an amazing customer service, truly touching on a personal level.

Couple of years ago I bought my mother-in-law, Lauri Walter, a bra from Soma Intimates as a Christmas gift. It was exactly what she was looking for . This year Lauri decided to replace it. The store was 3 hours away for her house but not far from where I live so I offered to take her next time she was in town. Which I did, without success. We went to the store only to find that Sofia bra that she was looking for was discontinued. Lauri was disappointed. For some of us it’s the little things that matter the most. And so it was for my mother-in-law.

Unbeknownst to me Lauri wrote a letter to Soma to express her sadness. It was a handwritten letter – Lauri is in her sixties, she doesn’t use social media.

Imagine her surprise when two weeks later she received a call from the company’s representative informing her that they received her letter and discussed it at the corporate office’s weekly meeting. The result: they were going to look in every store across the country and see if they can find the bra she was looking for. And a week later she received a package containing seven bras – the last seven left in the country! With it came the handwritten letter from one of the store managers – an appropriate way to communicate with the woman of Lauri’s age. It said:

 “Dear Lauri –

Our corporate office called saying you had been searching for a Sofia bra. I was happy to find these at my outlet for you! They have been discontinued and perhaps are the last ones in our company. I hope you enjoy these. They are being sent to you complementary from our corporate office.

Our love and best wishes,

Sue Peters
Store Mgr #5287
Jersey Shore
Premium Outlets”

Lauri finished her story with “I started being rather disappointed with the company. Now, I would never say anything negative about them. Actually, I will be recommending it to all my girlfriends. What a delightful experience!”

To me what is most remarkable about this story is company’s attention to an elderly woman from a small town – a woman who isn’t an ‘influencer’ with thousands of followers and the fact that it didn’t matter to them. They treated Lauri with the same respect and consideration as they would give to their elite customers.  THAT is the true definition of an amazing brand.

Lauri’s satisfaction came first and foremost to Soma. Lauri’s daughter-in-law sharing her experience with thousands of other people through this post is just icing on the cake for them. As are all of the additional customers our family will refer to this brand in future.

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Online presentation website Slideshare is an important business network which ranks in the top 150 sites on the web, with 60 million monthly viewers, and 3 billion page views a month. Users upload presentations, Word and PDF files, tag them, and share them on other social media sites or embed them in their blogs and company websites. (For more statistics see this infographic that Slideshare released in December 2011)

But Slideshare isn’t just a one-way process: the social functions in the site are giving companies the potential to connect with customers and clients in new ways, generating new business and enhancing their online image.

But just how are they achieving this?

1. Telling your story

For organizations of all sizes, being innovative in technology use to get their message across can help them connect with new audiences. Sharing presentations can show users a company’s ethos far better than the more traditional LinkedIn/Twitter/Facebook routes alone. They can make a company more three dimensional and add personality.

In May 2011 NASA launched their NASA Universe channel on Slideshare, which integrated presentations, documents and videos from their headquarters and field centers. In the announcement on the Slideshare blog, NASA Social Media Manager Stephanie Schierholz said, “NASA always is on the lookout for new ways we can engage people in their space exploration program. SlideShare provides us another great way to share our content in new ways and new places with the goal of inspiring and interesting people in the universe.”

Because presentations are generally about very specific topics, companies use Slideshare for inbound marketing, that is, generating traffic through clients’ and customers’ searches. Sharing Slideshare links, it is possible to optimize searches by tagging presentations and using the Slideshare profile to link back to the company website.

2. Highlighting your experts

IBM Expert Network is a network (a combination of channels) that leverages the thought leadership of employees across the company to gain social media engagement. It showcases latest thinking, research, inspiration videos and more.

3 and 4. Demand generation and social cross-pollination

We’ve all heard it: What gets measured gets funded. But tracking awareness metrics is one thing, measuring lead capture is something else entirely. Eloqua not only has an active and creative SlideShare channel – so creative, in fact, that SlideShare itself features Eloqua’s channel as their example of what a Platinum page should look like – but through its SlideShare Cloud Connector, the company automatically populates its demand generation database with profile information from anyone who completes a form on its SlideShare channel.  It’s one of the ways companies are bringing together social media with demand generation.

Another thing that jumps out about the channel is their social network cross-pollination. The company highlights links to its Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube communities right under the channel’s description.

5. Sharing in-depth information

An increasing number of companies are using Slideshare to present financial, technical or other in-depth information that can be difficult to represent on their websites using more traditional tools, such as graphs and text, which can enable them to connect with potential clients in a whole new way.

Pfizer uses Slideshare to post their financial reporting and other presentations, allowing interested parties to access that information in a user-friendly format.

6. Sparking conversations

Brand management company 1000 Heads which specializes in managing what others say about brands, rather than what the companies themselves say, uses Slideshare’s social tools and community section to spark conversations with users who comment on, embed or share presentations from their clients, which helps them to reach whole new audiences and actively engage with them.

7. Upscaling exposure

If a webinar or conference presentation reached only a few thousand in its original format, Slideshare can have a multiplier effect once the presentation is posted online. Tom Critchlow of Distilled discovered this after his presentation, which had been seen through an online webinar by only a few thousand, received over 30,000 views on Slideshare.

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