Every day, we work with clients who offer a professional service like accounting or healthcare. And, while I am advocate of social media, I have to say it’s much harder to see the return on your investment of time and energy on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media outlets when you aren’t selling a widget to a consumer.

That said, there is gold there – you just have to dig a little deeper. Let’s look at the reasons I’ve come to this conclusion and how a Facebook page can help your company:

1. Your FB Fan page establishes another outpost on the web for your company
Your Fan page is a place where prospects, customers, employees, vendors, management and the media can find information out about your products and services. These pages are indexed by the search engines and are public-facing by default – this means that people can find you even if they aren’t logged in to Facebook. With more than 500 million active users, it’s a place your business should be just to keep up with the competition. And even if you are marketing B2B, with that many folks on Facebook – there’s a really good chance your target audience is using it too.

2. Improved SEO and increased traffic
Google has added a new Social Search function. This indexes content on sites like Facebook. So your Fan page content has the potential to improve your search engine ranking and increase the number of ways people can find you. You can capture people on Facebook who are interested in your services, but may not have heard of your company. They follow your links to your website.

3. Connects management and staff directly to customers and fans – easily and free.
By engaging regularly with your Facebook Fans, you increase their loyalty and their advocacy. They are more likely to spread the word about your services because you are staying on their radar – your updates appear in their Facebook News Feed.

Your branded FB page allows people to share your videos and photos, ask and answer questions, and interact with your company and each other. And you have a direct pipeline to your customers. You can send messages to them all at once or target people by location or other demographics – for free.

4. Provide better customer service
You can deepen your relationships with your customers by connecting with them in a social way. And if they have specific questions or feedback, you can talk to them immediately. This provides HUGE value to your audience. You can keep them updated with tips, strategies, industry news, latest research, and so on.

Everytime you update your Facebook page, think: How can I best add value to my clients and Facebook Fans? What do they really want to know? For example, a medical practice may be adding a new technology or an accounting firm may want to let Fans know about important tax filing deadlines.

5. Get ROI-related metrics about your Fans
Facebook’s Page Insights tools and dashboard facilitate the analysis of your marketing and communication by revealing data related to interactions (Comments, Wall posts, and “Likes”); discussed posts, reviews, and mentions; Fan demographics (gender, ages, geographic location/distribution); and so on. These tools improve your ability to identify and target specific demographics and gauge ROI.

This should get you started thinking in the right direction about how to add value to your community using Facebook. I’ll write several more posts to help you with your Business Fan page in the next week or so.

Let me know if you have any thoughts or feedback in the comments section below.

If you’ve never been to the Yakima region (this is “wine country” for the state of Washington) do yourself a favor and see what the community has to offer. Great scenery, fantastic vineyards, and a mix of old and new culture that will entertain even the most skeptical traveler.

What a great crowd! Folks from all sizes of business were in attendance, and there was definitely a diversity of experience and knowledge in using social media.

As a follow-up, I’m posting a PDF of the presentation as well as the compelling video I shared. If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email (or better yet, see me on Twitter!)

Thanks again to the sponsors: Yakima Valley Visitors and Convention Bureau (John and Kirsten – you and your team are awesome), Greater Yakima Chamber of Commerce, and New Vision.

“What is the ROI of Social Media?

and

“How do I measure the ROI of social media?”

And these are great questions that companies should be asking.

Unfortunately, there is no one answer. While we can certainly obtain some metrics through tools like Twitter Search and Google Analytics, some of social media is simply about building goodwill and nurturing relationships. Like the good old-fashioned golf game and the “Let’s Do Lunch” strategy, people like connecting with people.

That said, to start determining your ROI on social media, you must know your baseline and define your goals. (from Mashable): “As a standard formula, ROI is pretty basic, ROI = (X – Y) / Y, where X is your final value and Y is your starting value. In other words, if you invest $5 and get back $20, your ROI is (20 – 5) / 5 = 3 times your initial investment. In the financial sense, ROI is measured purely in the context of dollars and cents, however, the principles can really apply to any type of investment — monetary or not.”

“Having concrete goals and concrete baselines is crucial to calculating your return on investment. So before you set out to measure and monitor your social media returns, you need to have a clear idea of what it is you want to accomplish.”

“Once you have your goals defined, you need to gauge the baseline for your levels before starting or changing your social media strategy. For example, if your goal is to increase social media mentions of your company, in order to measure the ROI of any actions taken toward that goal, you need to know where you stand now. You can’t evaluate the ROI accurately without a baseline.”

“Although ROI ≠ metrics, traditional web metrics like traffic counts, number of comments, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, etc. are an important component when calculating your ROI.”

“The trick is to not rely solely on the numbers, but on what the numbers end up leading to. For instance, does your increase in website visitors correlate with higher sales? Are people that find your website from Twitter or Facebook then clicking on your product pages or going to the e-Commerce section of your site? That’s the sort of data you want to be able to look for.”

Erik Qualman of Socialnomics has put together another fabulous video that breaks down the staggering numbers of social media into an absorbent format. (See our post, The Social Media Revolution, for his first video.)

Social Media ROI

Click here to view the embedded video.

Erik writes,

While the video uses familiar nomenclature like ROI, many pieces of social media behave so differently than anything we have ever seen, that I prefer to use “What does or will success look like?” rather than “What’s the ROI?” After all, why are we trying to measure social media like a traditional channel?  Social media touches every facet of business and it should be viewed more as an extension of good business ethics.  Which, if done properly, will harvest sales down the line.

Social Media ROI Statistics

Here are some key statistics pulled from the ROI of Social Media Video:

1.  Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook and roughly a 1/3 of these are small businesses.

2.  Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media.

3.  Vaynerchuk found first hand that $15,000 in Direct Mail = 200 new customers, $7,500 Billboard = 300 new customers, $0 Twitter = 1,800 new customers.

4.  Lenovo was able to achieve cost savings by a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to community website for answers.

5.  Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook program incented users to give up ten of their Facebook friends in return for a free Whopper.  The estimated investment for this program was less than $50,000 yet they received 32 million media impressions which roughly estimated equals greater than $400,000 in press/media value.  Which to put in context is somewhat like reaching the entire populations of 19 states (understanding this doesn’t account for unique vs. repeat visitors, etc.)

6.  BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube blending everything from an iPhone to a sneaker.

7.  Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter.

8.  Naked Pizza, a New Orleans Pizzeria that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media.  In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.”  And 85% of their new customers were from Twitter.  So, yes, social media does work for small businesses.

9.  Tweets for a Cause sent out a tweet from Atlanta to encourage support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.  As a result of retweets, the Atlanta Chapter site received 11,000 visitors in 24 hours as a result of this initiative by ResponseMine Interactive.

10.  Intuit introduced “Live Community” into their TurboTax® products 2 years ago.  Due in part to the resulting word-of-mouth, they have seen unit sales increase +30% each year and have now integrated “Live Community” into their other products like QuickBooks, Quicken, etc.

11.  Software company Genius.com reports that 24% of its social media leads convert to sales opportunities.

12.  During Barack Obama’s rise to the White House, he garnered 5 million fans on social media and 5.4 million clicked on an “I voted for Obama” Facebook button.  Most importantly this resulted in three million online donors contributing $500 million in fundraising. An astounding 92% of the donations were in increments of less than $100.

13.  The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center witnessed a 9.5% increase in registrations by using social media.

14.  Web host provider Moonfruit more than recouped its $15,000 social media investment as their Website Traffic soared +300% while correspondingly sales increased +20%.

15.  eBay found that participants in online communities spend 54% more money.

16.  71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It.

Supporting articles:

Lee Oden, “Book Review: Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk,” Online Marketing Blog

Jan M. Rosen, “Be It Twittering or Blogging, It’s All About Marketing,” New York Times, 3/11/2009

Jon Swartz,  “More marketers use social networking to reach customers,” USA Today,  8/28/09

Let’s talk about your company’s social media strategy. Small investments in Internet Marketing lead to big ROI (as you can see): 503-922-2289

There are some companies that target seniors and Baby Boomers, but are still resisting an interactive online presence and participating in social media.

They may think, “Well my clients are mostly over 60 so they’re not very tech savvy.” Or, “Social media is for kids. My clients are older – they don’t use that stuff.”

However, this is a misperception. While there are still many Baby Boomers and seniors who are not using the Internet as voraciously as Generation Y, the numbers may surprise you.

Seniors Online

Individuals 65 and older still make up less than 10 percent of the active Internet universe. However, their numbers are on the rise. In the last five years, the number of seniors actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent, from 11.3 million active users in November 2004 to 17.5 million in November 2009. Among people 65+, the growth of women online in the last five years has outpaced the growth of men by 6 percentage points.

The largest percentage increase in Internet use since 2005 has been in the 70-to-75 age group, according to the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The survey found that 45 percent of that age bracket is online, compared with 26 percent in 2005. Researching health information is the third most popular online activity with the most senior age group, after email and online search.

What’s more, many seniors find social networking exciting and enjoy finding online community. They’re creating their own blogs and, more often, connecting with family and friends by joining Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

“Social media are giving seniors a voice, and for a generation that has sometimes felt isolated and overlooked, that’s no small feat,” said Sarah Hoit, chief executive of My Way Village, which designs online social networks for older adults.

The No. 1 online destination for people over 65 in November 2009 was Google Search, with 10.3 million unique visitors. Windows Media Player and Facebook were No. 2 and No. 3, with 8.2 million and 7.9 million visitors, respectively. Interestingly, Facebook, which came in at No. 3, ranked No. 45 just a year ago among sites visited by senior citizens.

The trend has caught the attention of senior-living communities that have begun to introduce social media to residents. People who grew up with vacuum-tube radio sets are now learning how to befriend grandchildren and old classmates on Facebook and Classmates.com.

Retirement communities are also launching their own Facebook pages and posting videos on YouTube to appeal to the Boomer children of current or prospective residents. For example, Edgemere Senior Living has a Facebook page. Fan pages like this often include dozens of photos of recent activities at the communities. Visitors to the page can become “fans” and post comments. There are entire social networking sites devoted just to seniors such as the Over 60 Exchange, as well as dedicated website areas of organizations like the AARP that has added a forum called Online Communities.

Baby Boomers Online

Baby Boomers are a much bigger force on the Web. The research group, eMarketer, estimates that in 2009 Internet users ages 45 to 63 make up 28.8% of the total online population, or 57.4 million users.

A new report from Forrester Research also reveals some information that may be different than you thought: More than 60 percent of those in the Baby Boomer generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums. What’s more, the percentage of those participating is on the rise.

In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively.

The number of Boomers responding to content posted online, as opposed to just passively consuming it, is also going up. For example, the proportion of older Boomers responding to content doubled from 15% in 2007 to 34% in 2008. According to Forrester, this is now a percentage that’s high enough to target this group with a social application.

Here are some relevant statistics from eMarketer that you should know about the baby boomer generation:

• 74% use the Internet at least once a month
• younger Boomers outnumber older Boomers online 35.3 million to 21.4 million
• more Boomer women are Internet users than Boomer men
• 62% of households headed by someone age 50 or older had annual incomes of $75,000 or more, nearly 5% higher than in 2004
• 68% of Baby Boomer women trust online recommendations and rated information they heard in online conversations as credible

What do all of these numbers mean to you and your company? They mean that even if your target audience is Baby Boomers and/or seniors, you cannot ignore Internet marketing. You must ensure that your Web site is keeping pace with the trends, and that you should have a social media strategy in place including a blog and Facebook page, at the very least. And a Twitter and YouTube presence would also be beneficial to reaching your prospects.

Because the rules have changed – a LOT.

Let’s go back…oh, let’s say about 5 years or so.

And in this not-so-distant past, a company could simply call the newspaper or the radio and just run a few ads to get more business. Basically, you used to be able to spend your dollars to buy more audience. The more you spent, the more customers you would get. That’s why the big businesses stayed big.

But NOW, this throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach doesn’t work.

Because NOW, there’s Facebook and ezines and SEO and mobile and viral videos and applications and Twitter…and …and…and…

The way that our customers are looking for information is changing rapidly.

Therefore, marketing via social media is essential if you want your company to stay up with the trends.

Because today, people want to get excited. They want to engage in dialogues with the companies that they support. So, to thrive and grow you must use social media to create exciting ideas and to stimulate conversations and to build online brands with which people have passionate love affairs.

This is a really exciting shift for most companies and organizations. Because new marketing and social media has so many opportunities for small- to mid-sized business to get themselves KNOWN.

Social media allows every business to leverage huge numbers of people by creating online community and generating excitement around its brand.

If you are not using social media, then begin now. Because people are flocking to these online venues in huge numbers. And your business should be marketing itself where your prospects are spending time.

Below is a presentation that I gave recently to a group of marketing professionals explaining more about the power of social media (you can also click here to go to the presentation on SlideShare). I hope it gives you some ideas about ways you can take your brand to the next level:

Online Marketing: Employers Using Social Media to Screen and Report

10 Surprising Ways that Twitter Has Helped My Business…and Ideas On How it Can Help Yours Too

Small and Medium Businesses Are Not Using Web 2.0 for Marketing (Here’s Why They Should!)

Recent reports from the Nielson Company give more compelling reasons. According to Nielson, social networks and blogs are grabbing a bigger share of the Net. Stats show that Americans have nearly tripled the amount of time they spend at social networking and blog sites such as Facebook and MySpace from a year ago.

In August 2009, 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet was at social networking sites, up from 6 percent in August 2008. Advertising spending on social networking sites and blogs more than doubled despite the recession, going from about $49 million in August 2008 to about $108 million in August 2009.

Nielsen VP John Gibs says that “advertisers that want to connect with core fan bases, such as movie studios, are allocating more and more dollars to online communities like Facebook and MySpace, where they can engage in an ongoing dialog with their target market.”

And a LOT of people are spending at least a bit of time on social networking sites. Consumers are deeply engaged with them. Nielsen’s data shows that about half of the U.S. population visited a social networking website in the last year and that number grows every quarter.

Here are some interesting trends in how the big social media sites break out demographically (and which will affect your choices in how you leverage these sites for your marketing efforts):

• Facebook users have a largely upscale profile. The top third of lifestyle segments relative to affluence were 25% more likely to use Facebook than those in the those in the lower third.
• The bottom third segments related to affluence are 37% more likely to use MySpace than those in the top third.
• Users of Facebook were also much more likely to use LinkedIn, a network geared towards business and professional networking, than those who use MySpace.
• The blogging and tweeting community at large isn’t necessarily more affluent, but bloggers and tweeters do live in more urban areas such as New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Chicago.

Let’s look at one more report from Nielsen. This one relates to traditional advertising. U.S. ad spending fell 15.4% in the first half of 2009, according to data released today by The Nielsen Company. A total of $56.9 billion was spent on advertising in the first six months of the year, more than $10.3 billion less than the same time period in 2008.

So, traditional ad dollars fell while social media ad dollars more than doubled. The big players are shifting the ad dollars because they are following the trends that consumers are setting. Mashable has a  great article listing some fantastic case studies citing examples of the Smartest Big Brands in Social Media.

If you aren’t on the social media bandwagon yet, it’s time to hop aboard.

If you need help planning and implementing your social media campaign, call Kinesis for a free initial consultation at 503-922-2289.

Kinesis is a Portland Web Design and Branding Firm. We help our clients reach their marketing and growth goals. Call us at 503.922.2289.