How Much is Social Media Worth?
Over the last few weeks, we’ve covered three ways to monitor the buzz in the social media realm: Google Alerts, Whos Talkin, and Social Mention. If you’ve started to use these tools, you’ve likely come to realize that actively listening can be time consuming. So how do you know if it’s worth it?
If you are pondering this question, I’d like to share some stats that the Aberdeen Group published in their report, “The ROI on Social Media Monitoring” in October 2009. According to Aberdeen, “the benefits of social media monitoring and analysis are clear and compelling.” After assessing over 250 diverse enterprises, they discovered that companies fell into 3 groups based on their dedication to and performance of social media monitoring: Best-In-Class Performers, Industry Average, and Laggards.
Best-in-Class performers enjoyed a 93% improvement in their ability to generate consumer insights that drove new product and service development. They had a 75% improvement in customer advocacy and a 63% decrease in customer service costs. On the other end of the spectrum, the Laggards saw 0% improvement in their ability to generate consumer insights that drove new product and service development. And, only a 4% improved customer advocacy and only a 4% decrease in customer service costs.
So this week’s tip is actually a question. If you could achieve only half the results of the Best-in-Class performers, how would that impact your business?