Are your company's "social media" efforts translating into increased sales?

Two things: We implemented marketing using Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter and all are delivering conversions to sales. We tried Billboards, Direct Mail, Outbound Call Center, SEO, you name it. Let's face it, our demographic is becoming more tech savvy, and they love it when they can tell their friends, "I have a friend on the inside!"

Totally agree that this improves the loyalty picture but it also opens the door to off-the grid customer support. Maybe that's a good thing. Bad thing is it isn't being tracked or recorded, so a customer can say, "Mary Tweeted me that my order will be credited a 50% discount and free shipping."

Most customers are afraid of it, we're helping them understand the need for best practices NOW. It's a tsunami.

The question is based on a wrong premise. Try repackaging it like this: "Are your company's "copy machines" efforts translating into increased sales?" Why does that seem so obviously wrong? Because we understand the concept and use of copiers, but not social media.

As Eduardo pointed out, social media is not a sales person. No Facebook account will ever close a single deal. It is a set of tools, just like copiers, scanners, and telephones.

A question closer to the bone might be, "Is your company training users to effectively leverage social media?"

I've seen many of our customers (I work for salesforce.com) leverage social media very effectively for both sales and service. On the service side it is a key differentiator because you can find customers with issues without them even reporting them and proactively engage to solve them. This is CRM nirvana for support and has a dramatic effect on customer loyalty which inevitably results in more cross-sells, up-sells. renewals, etc. On the sales side it takes some more creativity but it can be a very effective lead gen and prospecting tool.

For me, the key to success is two fold. First is core integration of these social media sites with your sales systems or service systems. Leveraging the latest technology to harvest these channels effectively is the only sure way to get value. I'm spoiled in this way because salesforce.com does this very effectively for sales or service (sorry for the commercial and I freely admit I consume the kool-aid by the gallon).

Second, I have to agree with Eduardo. This is a channel and as such it needs to be managed. You have to have a strategy for harvesting the data, a strategy for leveraging the data and a set of metrics in place to measure what is effective and what isn't because we're all learning all the time and not everything will work.

,02

Use of social media is not just limited to making more sales. It can be used for support purposes, community building or other activities that are just as important.

I read through the responses above and want to expand on Doug and Kevin's comments above.

From the customer support/service perspective, company blogs, traditional social media websites (twitter/fb) as well as industry specific sites (travel - think travelocity, trip advisor,) autos (edmunds, kelly blue book), home foreclosure prevention (national new sites, loanmodpost) - are great avenues for not only supporting the individual making the comment, but providing realistic, unfiltered comments to the entire company (think R&D, finance, risk mitigation, product development, HR,) in order to shine additional insight into how a product or service may be enhanced, modified, eliminated, or even focused with greater intensity. Patterns begin to build. with the right CRM system in place, one can build a 3D if you will profile of the customer. If you arm your Agents or those that you are using via an outsourced provider with greater data and profiling even before a phone, email, chat, text, or even social media response, the outcome of what you want to happen is more predictable.. You essentially eliminate the speculation of what you think the customer is going to do and help ensure a very positive outcome that not only satisfies their original reason to make a comment, but perhaps even spread this to other friends, colleagues and influencers to build greater brand awareness or increase sales that you would never have had.

Sales - Absolutely. It's been shown that people venting on various blogs or SM websites are prone to purchase. You just need to know what the key is to unlock that pent up value. SM can tell you a lot about the individual.. What other interests do they have? Often you can figure out what industry they work in and maybe even present offers that compliment their interests.. Same for hobbies and similar. The amount of info about anyone connected via social platforms opens the doors to greater revenue performance.

None of this is effective unless you have the processes, procedures, technological expertise and metrics to effectively implement, monitor, and drive increased performance.

I'd be glad to speak more. But great stuff everyone.

rklostermann@centrisinfo.com

Social media, for those who engage in and understand education based marketing, can be beneficial. I have secured clients from LinkedIn and increased traffic to my site from Twitter and Facebook.

Also since the only means I use to market my book - Be the Red jacket in a sea of gray suits - is social media and the book continues to sell, I know that these efforts are securing a positive return of my time investment because I continue to receive royalty checks.

One point of clarification, social media is not free. The hours invested in positing to these various sites does cost you. This is why tracking your results is so critical.

I will be focusing more on Facebook the third quarter of this year due to the research that this is becoming a very viable marketing climate.

It's a long-tail strategy, so it really depends on how long you've been doing it. For us, it's been a catalyst for a fundamental change in how we do business, it's made us re-think what selling is, when the sells cycle starts and by whom. It absolutely contributes to higher revenue, and luckily there are more and more tools available to help you prove that. Ultimately what is comes down to is whether or not you are providing value through social media, but more importantly, through your product.

Those job postings are for account executives, so the result will be more sales.

Michael,

I recently had a conversation with a good friend of mine (Ken Kaufman, CFOwise.com) and he said that his social networking is really paying off. Not that he has invested $$ into them but it has been time well invested in getting it going.

As a reslut, I'm engaging now with LinkedIn, Twitter, Naymz and others, time will tell...

Best of Success!
Tom
(http://twitter.com/Telenotes)

"Increase Sales?"... let's be honest, social media is a channel, not a salesperson, it's up to the company's stategy to do that. Social media can be a channel to reach more people, exposure to new markets, etc, and then if the company is willing to conduct internet sales they must be prepared to do that, put in place all in order to recieve all this leads generated by social media.

Yes I am. I have profiles on many SN groups, but concentrated the last two years on Linkedin. I made a decision this year to be on Linked in less often and will start concentrating on Facebook.

And.. I found this forum, too :) I have to say that I've spent more time here, although I'm new than I do on Facebook, I think because more of my ideal clients could be are here (although many are in the background registered but not answering questions.

Upwards and onwards

Maria Marsala
http://www.ElevatingYourBusiness.com

LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and lots of Blogs have built our business faster than any other methodolgy.

It's free, it brings prospects to us that ask us for information about our products and services.

What better way to start a phone conversation than

Dennis: That's the answer and how we use it...It's noise that brings people to our sight and they inquire about us or ask questions of us. From there it's easy to have a better business conversations

I think this discussion topic is right on the money - pun intended. If you sell business-to-business solutions with multiple buyers and a long sales cycle, you absolutely need to be already in the social media game, giving and giving some more, expecting nothing in return, so that you can start to cultivate customers. The traditional ways of demand generation and selling are beginning not to work any more, because customers are not responding and buying this way anymore. For more on this argument, feel free to read a post I recently wrote on the sales2.0network blog (http://sales20network.com/blog/?p=570). I hope you find it useful.
PS Aren't we all using focus.com, a social media resource, to help people drive more sales? :-).

I believe that every company who has online presence is using social media for at least any purpose whether it is for recruitment or marketing or lead generation. As far as sales through social media is concerned, I would not say that it is a perfect medium of sales generation. However, this is the best way that can motivate people to visit your website and then they can buy your services or products.

In the last 3 months we recorded about 2 or 3 added registration on our Project Management courses, in Turin area, Italy, per week. The most went from Twitter and our blog.
We are two people that dedicate about one hour a day on Twitter and blog.
For the low participation level on social networks in Italy (except Facebook) and the effort dedicated, it's a very good result.