How can your organization "Monetize Social"?
As a business there is only one reason to be on social and to have our teams leveraging social media.
Social is a great way to stay in touch with customers while continuing to build strong relationships. Further, “Social” is an exceptional way to create employee advocacy while improving human resource activities, including recruiting.
Add to that the power of social sales to integrate and drive all our marketing and sales results.
With all these benefits it still amazes me how often I get asked how it is we can monetize social media!
While leveraging “Social” can benefit practically every aspect of our business, the key benefit across all of this is its inherent ability to be monetized. Within reason, everything we do on social media can be measured in order to optimize and improve all results.
So, what does it mean when we say we can “monetize social”?
In short, we can drive new and increased revenues directly or indirectly through new sales and cost savings. All of this by simply incorporating “social” across our business.
Let me elaborate;
Employee advocacy:
Through much stronger employee relationships, we increase retention, cut our costs, and increase productivity while increasing revenue. This can be measured directly by understanding our actual employee cost based on turnover and of course our productivity. When our employees are happy they are much more likely to recommend our company to their contacts and friends further improving our overall results.
*This may seem like an obvious statement but I think most companies would be very surprised to learn that their own employees do not recommend them to friends and contacts!! If this isn't a loss of an opportunity and low-hanging fruit I really don't know what is...
Human resources:
by leveraging our social channels, we can cut our recruiting costs down dramatically, thereby improving our return on investment in terms of time and money spent. Further when we leverage social effectively we will now have the best candidates coming to us rather than our marketing to or recruiting them. As marketing will quickly tell you this also greatly improves our brand and is very important in our ongoing activities.
Marketing:
This is one of the key areas wherein the use of social can have the biggest impact. Not only will Social improve the Revenue results significantly it can also cut down on costs and provide real-time tracking and market reach that we can measure at a micro level. As marketing becomes truly social it will become completely integrated with sales. This is something you will instantly recognize when it happens.
Sales:
This is the area most obvious for developing new revenue. The results to be gained with an effective social sales program simply cannot be overstated. While this does not replace any traditional selling skills, and process it absolutely does create a much more productive method for generating leads. Not only that, but for sales teams and sales agents, by staying engaged with your clients online you will see a massive return for your time. For many businesses, effectively building in a social sales program will increase new and repeat business revenue by 25 to 30% in the first 12 month. This has been proven time and time again across all industries and certainly with our clients. Not only will revenues increase, but the cost of acquiring new clients will come down and your sales cycles will be shorter.
While we've covered many of the key areas where “social” can be monetized in your business we certainly did not cover it all. Social can also be used to create an effective investor platform, or a general outreach platform – depending on your business model.
Social is one of the lowest cost investments you will ever make in your business and today it has the potential for the greatest return.
So, stop buying those outdated sales lists, or hiring those expensive speakers who put on all those famous “rah-rah” sessions. Start investing in something that will have an actual impact on your revenue now and for many years to come.
The best companies act proactively, not reactively. Which are you?