Getting business value from social media

Companies that want to gain business value from social media need to leverage social networks to gather data about customers and also use data and comments received on these networks to feed back into their business, such as their customer relationship management systems.

Businesses can also benefit from encouraging their CEOs to join social media networks. It is also crucial that businesses make sure their use of social media does not overstep the law, including privacy regulations.

These were some of the points made by speakers at the ITWeb Social Media Summit, held earlier this week.

According to Roan Mackintosh, business director for Acceleration Marketing, a digital marketing technology consultancy, social media is a data-rich platform. He stressed that the challenge for marketers is learning how to track this data, protect it, manage it and monetise it.

Mackintosh stressed it is important for marketers to know what platforms are available and how best to leverage these. He explained that marketers should augment the data they have on customers with the data available on these customers' social network profiles.

Mackintosh said this includes mapping out the various connections between people on social networks. He added that marketers should try to map the exchange between a person and his or her social networks before a purchase takes place.

He described the following scenario to demonstrate his point: Someone shares information about a holiday with another person on Twitter. The latter has upcoming leave and decides to do some research, after which the person buys a holiday package.

Mackintosh explained that, without the social media data, one could only surmise that search contributed to the sale. He said marketers need to be aware of the other elements. According to him, there are various ways of accessing this information, including custom IDs, unique cookies or getting hold of the person's social profiles or Twitter handle.

Walter Pike, a speaker on marketing in a social world, said digital marketers must use social media to identify influencers. He said they should then connect with these influencers, because if they can get these people to talk about their brands on social networks, the brand's message is likely to spread.

Pike added that influencers are not necessarily the people with high Klout scores. Rather, he said, being influential depends on the person's social network connections.

According to Pike, tools like NodeXL, which let users explore social network graphs, can help people identify influencers. The tool can be downloaded for free.

Also speaking at the summit, Suzanne Little, head of social media at Quirk, a digital marketing agency, argued that social media can be used as a powerful CRM tool.

According to Little, in order to use social media as a CRM tool, the silos within a business need to be integrated so that communication can flow between them.

For example, she explained, if a problem is picked up from a comment on a social network, this data needs to be filtered quickly to the right department.

Little also stressed it is crucial that companies listen to the feedback they receive on social media networks. She explained that people want to feel like they are important to a company, while ongoing conversations with customers can help foster loyalty. Escalating a complaint on one of these networks to the right department quickly can even turn an unhappy customer into a more loyal one, she said.

Tom Manners, MD of Clockwork Media, a media and communications company, said many companies want to see a direct relationship between social media and sales, plotting, for example, the map between a tweet and a sale.

However, he argued, this is not what social media is about. He suggested that social media should rather be viewed as a brand affinity and customer acquisition tool.

According to Manners, social media can still impact the bottom line. He explained that engaging with customers on social media channels helps keep them happy. “Happy customers spend more money,” he added.

Manners also said company CEOs should be encouraged to use social media. He pointed out that local CEOs who are active on Twitter have managed to use the social network successfully.

For example, he said, FNB CEO Michael Jordaan has, at times, used his account to respond to customers personally, while Vodacom CEO Pieter Uys used his account to apologise to customers when the telco experienced an outage earlier this year, even tweeting at 8pm to tell customers that he was personally taking care of the situation and would not leave until it had been resolved.

Paul Jacobson, director at WebTechLaw, a legal and compliance services firm, warns that very few companies start drafting their social media policies with legal input. Instead, he said, getting legal input is often the last step.

Jacobson also pointed out that with anything 'social', the natural tendency to address risks “goes out the window”. He said this is because people on social platforms have a 'we're all friends' approach to social media.

Social media also makes it easier to share information, said Jacobson, and companies are no longer able to control their employees' access to these networks because of mobile devices.

According to Jacobson, this sharing of information can have a potentially disastrous effect. For example, he said, staff may upload photos from a staff party, which portrays the company in a bad light, onto Facebook. He added that staff may also criticise their employer on social networks.

Furthermore, Jacobson said, employers who access employees' social media accounts can also find themselves in trouble with the CCMA if they make a decision based on something they learnt from the employee's account.

According to Jacobson, companies can mitigate these risks with carefully developed frameworks and policies.