Are you a small business that is struggling with getting your arms around Social Media? A new study from my good friends at Office Arrow reveals that you may not be alone. The below infographic summarizes their findings for small business social media and it showcases many aren’t properly tapping into the massive opportunities:

In the combative world of online marketing managers like me, a measurable and effective channel to the “last mile” of conversion is critical. While I know, my Tweets and Facebook updates are creating interest and possible traffic to my site, I cannot with a 100% certainty have an attribution mapping system for these sources. Group buying combined with daily deals has of course seen positive traction, but I am curious as to how else the social graph can be leveraged for a quantitative solution like say Pay-Per-Click (e.g. Google AdWords).

Klout Perks, for instance, in my opinion, is a determined effort to develop a platform for social commerce by incentivising (Or maybe bribing!) the influencers. While the system rightly attempts to measure one’s ability to drive action on social media, the scoring model and even the expected outcome is possibly flawed. Are Klout scores measured with consistency? Can Influence be generalized? As in, lets say, can and should an influential chef endorse the test drive of a Chevy? Even if all of the above are put into place, how can I as a manager attribute sales to influence? So my quest continues.

Taking rewarding influence to the next level is Curebit.com. The system gives redeemable points if purchases happened as a result of one’s influence on social media. It goes totally in the direction of quantifiable, attributable model with strong Analytics which explain where my buyers came from and under the influence of whom. The dashboard can be easily integrated with most online shop fronts and gives fantastic analytics to support campaign decisions for the seller. This is moving very close to eliminating the guessing game and making the social graph work for me on the last mile to conversion.

There are other very interesting early stage hybrids in this movement towards making the social network quantifiable. Likebids.com is a refreshingly disruptive model where offer coupons are unlocked once the offer has a minimum threshold of Likes. Technically, what this means is that the sharing happens before  transactions, unlike, lets say Curebit.com where sharing happens post the purchase. In some ways, the brand is assured of decent visibility due to the cascading effect of social media. I, as a marketer, will certainly love the potential visibility, if there is a backend that can give me precise data of my success.

As more online businesses lock horns via social networks, a platform that can establish a clear, effective and quantifiable conversion generating and tracking system will be able to offer a larger chunk of the pie. I cant wait to see some astonishing innovations and investments in this space.

Image Courtesy: Central-e-commerce.com

With the holiday season just around the corner, many retail marketing execs are likely polishing up their efforts to make it a winning campaign for their companies in hopes of offsetting a sluggish economy.

With that in mind, what are some things for retail marketers to keep in mind as they put the finishing touches on last-minute efforts to secure more return on investment (ROI) this holiday season?

Among the things to consider are:

• The holidays are the busiest, and oftentimes most profitable, period of the year. They also offer the opportunity to rebound and end the year strong, especially when businesses struggled earlier in the year. It behooves  retail businesses to make a strong push in the final few months, with social media being a great tool to utilize;
• Are you using things like photos and Facebook and Twitter to promote your products and/or services? For many small retail businesses, an image is worth a thousand words. By using images, not only can you provide customers and potential customers with a visual of what you have to offer, but you can help them a little better in their decision-making process by seeing the item/s from the comfort of their homes;
• Promote key hashtags on Twitter. Assuming you are using Twitter to promote your company, be sure that you engage in properly created hashtags to connect with consumers. For example, if you’re running a Christmas contest where you will be giving away gifts, use words like #Christmas, #gifts, #contests #coupons etc. to attract a larger audience on Twitter. These will be the same consumers who are using certain keywords to dial-into a particular subject of interest;
• Put conceivable goals in place. While we all know the 2011 economy has been less than stellar at times, you still need to have goals in place for end-of-the-year retail marketing. It is important prior to kicking off the campaign to measure your goals and what can be conceivably accomplished this holiday season. While looking to attract more business, break things down as to specific needs;
• Include social media as part of broad campaign. Using social media is important, but it should be a portion of a more complete campaign. The advantage with social media is that its ability to be real-time is unsurpassed by anything else. If you have sent out a flyer, advertised in a newspaper, magazine or on radio/TV, you can use the social media campaign to highlight this;
• Lastly, have fun with the campaign. Given it is the holidays, many people will find themselves stressed out with all they have to do. It is important to make the holiday marketing campaigns light and fun for the consumers, not something considered stressful. When all is said and done, the social media campaign should entice people to come to you, not drive them away.

As retail businesses nationwide look to craft the right message this holiday season, take the time to make sure your marketing message is utilizing social media to the fullest extent.

If it is, you may find yourself unwrapping some pleasing financial numbers come 2012.

Photo credit: Blackdiamondpr.com

Could it actually be that a company took the time to listen to customer feedback and in the process learned something?

California-based Netflix informed the public this week that it will move away from its recently announced plan to separate its DVD service and market the brand through the Qwikster name.

Announced barely a month ago, the original plan drew the ire of countless customers who not only reacted negatively to price increases, but that the service would be split up.

Using both email and its blog to make the announcement, Netflix said that it will instead continue utilizing the “one Web site, one account and one password” through the Netflix brand with both streaming and DVD-by-mail services. The news will undoubtedly be well received by most subscribers who did not like the idea of being burdened with a pair of separate accounts. Oh, wait, many subscribers won’t even know of this plan because they are now former subscribers.

The original announcements, first involving price increases, then the proposed dual accounts, led to a dropping of more than 50 percent in Netflix shares since July.

In comments from Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings, he noted that “Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that. There is a difference between moving quickly – which Netflix has done very well for years – and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.”

As for the price increase, Netflix went on to state on its blog, “While the July price change was necessary, we are now done with price changes.”

The price changes dealt a major blow to the Netflix subscriber list, with countless members dropping their accounts. In fact, Netflix was expected to have around 24 million subscribers at the end of the quarter, a loss of close to one million or so from the previous quarter.

Many of those former subscribers utilized social media in recent weeks to announce their discontent with the company, and in many cases, that they would go elsewhere for their movie rental needs.

The blog regarding keeping the services on one account was tweeted more than 2,000 times as of Monday morning (Oct. 10), showing the reach and power of social media sites such as Twitter. To show the interest in the news through social networking, the previous three Netflix blog posts regarding movie and television announcements drew less than 50 tweets combined.

Whether or not Netflix is truly done with its changes remains to be seen? One fact is in play, however, the public spoke, many of whom used social media as their communication device, and Netflix listened.

Now wouldn’t that be a novel concept if more and more businesses did what the customer requested?

Google+ has launched to much excitement, and few are as pumped about it as businesses and nonprofits.  Finally, they can be a part of the social media wave rather than catching up to their customers.  But is it too early?

I say yes, and trust me it is not easy to say that.  As the Director of Marketing and a social media nerd, I am having to sit on my hands to stop myself from creating a Google+ account for GiveForward.  But as someone who has dealt with the ups and downs of running a business’s social media, I can tell you now, patience is a virtue.

Lets start with looking at why Google doesn’t want businesses on the site just yet. Google has come out and said they aren’t ready for organizational profiles and are even saying their policy team will “actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles”.

To entice organizations to hold off Google is promising an experience that is unique to businesses and includes deep analytics and connection to products like AdWords.  In fact, they have even provided a spreadsheet where “non-user entities” can apply to be a part of an experiment to test out Google+ with businesses.

But my hesitations are about more than just the limitations of the experience that Google+ currently provides.  My concern is what happens when a group starts with a user profile and later tries to shift to an organizational profile.

This exact problem is something that a number of organizations ran into during the growth of Facebook, and many are still figuring it out today.   Businesses are trying to figure out how to shift their “friends” into “likes” and are losing users in the process.  Another issue is if a company needs to change the name on their Facebook page.  You can’t do it, instead you have to create a new page with the name you want and again, migrate all of your users to the new page, running the risk of losing people.

While I am pumped about Google+ and am having fun with my own user profile, I’ve seen enough businesses struggle with getting their social media profiles sorted out that I believe jumping into Google+ will just cause undue stress and frustration when the business pages emerge and everyone has to shift to take advantage of the new functionality.

The pros of joining don’t outweigh the cons just yet, so for now, my recommendation is wait for the Google+ business profiles.  In the meantime why not join Google+ with a personal profile and learn it as a user so you can have a great plan in place to reach users when you can kick off you organization’s page?

Recommended book: What Would Google Do?

Some people look at their Facebook page, Twitter stream etc, and say why isn’t anyone talking to me?  Well the reason is that you are not talking to them!

Instead of seeing the social network you interact on as a way to push your product, or tell everyone how amazing you are, see it as a party.  Not just any party, but a party that you are hosting at your place.

If you were holding a party you would,

1. Chat to people, even the ones you haven’t met before – hint do this online!
2. Introduce people to others – you can so easily do this in social media, but first you need to find out about the people at the party (see point 1)
3. Offer food and drinks, yes some people do just come for the free drinks – often in social media, when you offer people a freebee suddenly you are everyone’s best friend, but it gives you a chance to get to know them, it starts the conversation
4. Make sure your place looks good before everyone arrives – it’s the same in social media, “first impressions count”
5. Say thank you if a guest bought you a gift – in social media world that is a comment or post that they make, don’t leave it floating out there….
6. Put on some tunes – it’s all about the right atmosphere; does the social network your business is playing on have the right vibe?
7. Kick out the trouble makers – don’t be afraid to tell any spammers where to go, it’s your party and you’ll cry if you want to!

So is anyone having a party at their house this weekend?

Too many of us hide behind our avatars on Twitter.  It is easier to be voyeuristic and watch your feed only commenting when it is comfortable.  What is the point of twitter if not to engage?  This week’s tip is to do just that, engage.  I challenge you to look at the way you use Twitter and ask “am I getting my money’s worth?”

Twitter, as we all know, is free but in the words of Cage the Elephant, “there ain’t nothing in this world for free.”  The opportunity cost of using Twitter is huge.  The time spent looking through your feed, carrying on conversations in the cloud and trying to connect are all for not unless there is purpose.

My challenge, take those newly formed relationships OFFline.  I have introduced this into my strategy over the past few months and the results have been mind blowing.  Look at Twitter as a 24/7 networking event then apply the same logic as you would to a physical event.  Meet new people and try to take the relationship to a cup of coffee or a meeting.

I realize that in many circumstances geographic separation will prevent this, but Skype is a powerful tool too.  The idea is to bring the relationship off Twitter – you can say a lot in 140 characters, but this is not a relationship.  What you will find is that you will form deeper, more meaningful relationships when you implement this strategy.

Inc. 500 Companies using Social Media and ACTUALLY seeing positive results is on the rise.  More small businesses need to view the importance of Social Media the same as their larger counterparts.

Interesting to note that Facebook success rates have gone up from 54% to 85% while services like twitter and blogging have gone down.

Overall the importance  of Social Media in a Inc. 500 companies business strategy has gone up 16% year over year.   These companies will continue to use these conduits for client acquisition and retention as 2011 unfolds.

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Article from eMarketer http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008211

On stats from Umass Dartmoth Center for Marketing Research

Written by Chris Van Dusen

Chris Van Dusen is a tech enthusiast, remote efficiency specialist and entrepreneur.  He is the president of i-FFICIENCY, a consultancy he co-founded to help small businesses and startups leverage new technology in the sales process.  Chris is also Director of Business Development and New Media for Rief Media, a full service marketing and communications firm.

chris@riefmedia.com
twitter: @ifficiency

Over the last year we have started to see many television commercials mention social media, insert a funny line about it (“Facebook Me”) or simply tag social media icons at the end.

I recently came upon a commercial for Norms Restaurant and it did something different.  The foundation of the commercial is grounded in social media rather than simply being an add-on.

“We came up with the idea to actually create and produce Facebook and Twitter spots not just tag spots to join us on Facebook and Twitter.  We wanted the spots to truly define and reflect what Facebook and Twitter are all about in a personal and humorous way.  We believe that this strategy also would drive more people to join us because the spots are unique, engaging and attention getting, not just a tag which most people don’t pay attention to any longer.” - Paige Gillingwater

The commercials run regionally.  Norms is a family owned business with several restaurants in the Southern California area.  The family started their small business/restaurants sixty years ago.  This family owned business has seen the following success within 10 days of the TV commercials:

• Gained 1,000 fans on Facebook
• Gained 150 followers on Twitter

Just as Social Media never sleeps, Norm’s restaurants never close; they are open 24 hours a day.