How Students and Busy Professionals can earn a 6 figure Income passively
Social platforms like blogs, Twitter, and Facebook make it almost effortless for businesses like yours to compose and post content to a potential audience of millions. It’s faster and cheaper than large-scale publishing, promotion, or
customer relations have ever been. But it isn’t free. To use social media effectively today takes strategists, writers, community managers, graphic designers, app developers, and customer service reps. It all costs money, even before you throw in funds for brand monitoring and analytics tools, publishing and promotions software, buzz-building prizes and giveaways — or for paid social media advertising. That’s what Mark Zuckerberg and other social media moguls are staking their future on: the notion that businesses and organizations will pay big money for ads on social networks. In short, corporate social media programs require investment. General Motors, which in 2012 pulled back its advertising from Facebook, has been spending a whopping $40 million a year to manage its social media efforts, of which $10 million is devoted to advertising. If investment is necessary, bean counters and decision makers at your firm will want to know the return on that social media investment.
The Power of Social Media
Before they loosen the corporate purse strings, those holding them will say, “Show me the impact social media have on reputation and the bottom line.” In answering, start here. Statistics eloquently tell some of the story. Social media can be a boon for brand equity, customer loyalty, and business performance. Various studies have found the following: 74% of consumers have a more positive brand impression after interacting with a company through social media Purchase likelihood increases 51% after a customer clicks the “like” button When they receive good customer service, social media users tell three times as many people about it as do nonusers of social media 83% of people who complained about a given company on Twitter “liked or loved” a response by the company 90% of consumers trust product reviews from people they know; 70% trust reviews from people they don’t know 40% of social media users “like” businesses in order to receive special discounts and promotions Facebook fans of a brand spend twice as much as those who are not Facebook fans The business benefits of social media aren’t limited to the realms of marketing and brand equity. Major efficiencies and productivity gains are to be had from faster and more interactive communication — between companies and consumers, among consumers, and in social-media-driven collaborations within a company. McKinsey Global Institute, the research arm of business consulting firm McKinsey & Company, reckons that better communication and collaboration via social media could add $1.3 trillion to the global economy. “These technologies are successful when influential people are role models, using them and explaining them,” says Michael Chui, coauthor of the McKinsey study “The Social Economy: Unlocking Value and Productivity Through Social Technologies.
Leveraging the Network Effect
Thanks to what’s called the “network effect,” initial awareness of your brand and its reach will be multiplied many times over by participation on social media websites. Here’s an example of how it works: for the Café Express Savings Club, we have a Facebook community of about 80,000 fans. Each member of Facebook has, on average, about 300 friends. When our fans see our posts in their Facebook news feeds, if they choose to “like,” comment on, or share them, our reach begins to extend to all their friends. As a result, our 80,000 fans give us a network reach of about 23 million people. Go into the Facebook Insights stats package yourself, and see what the reach of your Facebook fan page is-you’ll probably find it is over 300 times your fan base. As we’ll discuss later, it’s a challenge to actually reach your “reach” (any given wall post will get to only about 16% of fans); nevertheless, it’s inspiring to think that a free medium can give you publishing and relationship access to an audience that huge. Friends-of-fans reach is valuable because friends typically share similar tastes and demographics — making them good potential customers.
