How can social media marketing increase profitability?

Being an online strategist these days isn’t just about making traditional usability and branding recommendations about improving the conversion rate for companies trying to sell products and services. It has always been about connecting prospects to people inside the company that are passionate about what they’re selling but now connections, and profits, are being made in the social media theater.  Social media comes into play to connect prospects to existing customers, or others in their life that can influence them to buy, and then for customer service after the sale.

You can’t just have Web developers living in a vacuum any longer where they receive “business” requirements, pound out code, and technically make something work so they can move on to the next project. Just as a Web application must pass certain quality assurance tests that verify that it works, we must now bring in usability testing to ensure that the Web application works well, and we must also look at how it integrates into social media. How about B2B (business to business) applications? Should they be considered for social media integration? You bet! B2B Web software is used by people for people.

No matter what you’re selling the bottom line is that you’re trying to connect people to products/services.  After the sale is done, depending on your business model, you need to move them into a different category of revenue but you’ll have to think about those connections.  How will you maintain customer loyalty? How will you provide the best customer service possible so that you maintain that revenue stream so that they buy from you again and again and recommend others to you?

I was walking into a local Millbury, Massachusetts Applebee’s restaurant yesterday and they had a sign taped to their door that encouraged patrons to connect to them on Facebook.  This wasn’t just the big corporate Applebee’s Facebook profile, but rather, a unique one for that particular restaurant. It seems that most all organizations are trying to figure out how to best make those social media connections.

Unless you have a large social media budget you can’t just jump in feet first without testing the water to find out where your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT analysis) are located. In order to fund social media the funding for something else has to be reduced but to find that money look at traditional ways that your business is connected to the outside world and ask questions about whether or not that amount of budget is still the most profitable way to do it? Is there a way to trim costs in traditional marketing and customer service in order to fund social media?

When you’re done with all of that you must still remember that your entire business isn’t just about software and sales numbers.  Your business is about how the people in your organization connect with, and provide service for, the people on the outside of your organization. You must be prepared to do business where they’re spending their time. It’s up to you to figure out where that is and how you enter the conversation.

Ron Scott
Manager of eBusiness Strategy
ronscottjr@gmail.com

Tags: conversion rate, marketing, money, qualitative data, social media, usability