Social Media Friends … with Benefits

Marketers are courting people on social media and the relationship has evolved past the early days when it was all about making friends.

Much to the delight of CFOs everywhere, social media has entered the era of “friends with benefits.” Tangible ones, even.

According to survey results released by Social Media Examiner, marketers have reported experiencing – and measuring – tangible return on their investment of time in social media, including: 

1. More people have heard of us

It may seem obvious – and probably won’t get anyone in the C-suite excited, but 88% of organizations are showing marked improvements in the amount of visibility their business has in the marketplace.

This means more eyeballs, more share of voice online, and more people jotting their business’ name down on their short list.

2. More people are checking out our website, and signing up for our emails

Instead of begging (“Put your name in this hat and win an iPad [and oh yeah, get emails from me]”), borrowing (“Maybe if I rent this list of people who have once eaten an orange, they’ll want to hear from me about my organic citrus farm if I blast them with an email!!!”) or stealing (“I think I’ll just copy and paste these emails out of this directory”) email subscribers, marketers are actually earning them through social media.

Seventy-two percent of organizations reported getting more traffic to their websites and signing up for email communications through social media.

3. More people are finding us through search engines

Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.org has recently shared some pretty compelling data on the correlation between social signals (e.g. Facebook “likes” and Tweets) and Google search results.

And many bloggers, writers, reporters, and influencers (i.e. anyone who publishes content on the web and may need to link to content sometime) spend a lot of time sifting through content on Twitter. In a lot of ways, social media is becoming a great way to build links (which will help result in higher search engine results).

A full 62% of marketers using social media have seen demonstrative improvements in their search engine rankings (current company included).

4. More people want to partner with us

The exposure generated on social media has resulted in new business partnerships for 56% of marketers surveyed. It’s a simple concept: social media is a round-the-clock networking event and people are looking for other smart people for potential symbiotic business relationships. Those relationships don’t happen as easily without it.

5. More people are qualifying as leads

Social media paves more inroads back to the company website (and subsequent lead generation form). This is the old-school notion of “expanding the funnel” in real life. Social media marketing allows access to a wider swath of potential customers (just like TV ads, just like magazine ads, just like radio ads, just like in-person events) and some of them turn into leads.

More than half of marketers surveyed have had this happen.

6. More people are buying from us

This is the holy grail of marketing, and 43% of marketers surveyed have drunk from it. It takes time to build a relationship in any medium, but once the relationship is there, the sales follow. For instance, 72% of marketers who have been using social media for more than 3 years reported that it has helped them close business.

 

The best time to get started in social media was years ago. The second best time is today.

 

As social media evolves from the era of “friends” to having friends with benefits, your organization can get in on the action.