ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

The First Steps to Building a Business Case for Pursuing Social Media Marketing Initiatives

ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

Are You Ready?

Building a business case for pursuing Social Media Marketing initiatives just got a whole lot easier. In 2009, Aberdeen Group produced a study on the ROI of Social Media Marketing and found that Best-in-Class companies experienced...

95% improvement in marketing effectiveness 90% improvement in visibility into consumer-generated content 80% improvement in ROMI (Return on Marketing Investment)

But can you make a compelling business case for social media for your business? Is your company even ready to embrace this channel?

Seven (7) Key Questions

The team at ymarketing has assembled seven (7) key questions you need to ask of yourself and your organization to evaluate whether or not you should pursue adding a Social Media / Social Web Strategy into your marketing mix.

1. Why? Are you considering Social Media Marketing: for community-building reasons, for the benefits to your website through natural search, for both, or for other reasons?

2. What? Do you know the difference between Digg and Twitter? Do you know why they're important? Do you understand how they need to work together as a part of an overall cohesive strategy?

3. How? Do you know how to measure all of this? Do you know how to substantiate a business case for pursuing social media as a marketing channel?

(These first three are shown as published on info.ymarketing.com/social-media)

4. Who? Do you know what percentage of the adult population is participating in social media -- as creators, editors, commenter's; what the demographics are; and why it's so important to understand the different audiences?

5. Does your company have a blog? How it is being used, updated, and how

many individuals within your company are publishing content? How is it being

received by your customers, prospects, etc.? Is your blog listed in the top 15 blog

directories?

6. Do you know the top 20 social media sites relevant to your business

and do you know how to create a presence, engage and take advantage of them?

7. Do you know what impact peer-to-peer recommendations and

referrals from friends have? Do you know what percentage of your traffic

comes from referrals? Do you recognize what impact these referrals have on

buying decisions and conversion rates? Can you measure this?

ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

The Aberdeen Group: The ROI of Social Media Marketing (Available for Purchase - Recommended)

"Social media gives direct marketers an opportunity to keep

their fingers on the pulse of how consumers are responding–to

what extent current campaigns are successful, how they need to

refine campaigns over time and, ultimately, the business

outcomes." - Jeff Zabin, Research Fellow, Aberdeen Group

• 50% of US online adults are content creators

• Over 75% are participating in social media in some form

• 1.2 million blog posts are created daily

• 83% of adults trust opinions of a friend/acquaintance who has used the

product or service

• One in three Internet users say purchase decisions are swayed by social

media content

"The benefits of social media marketing have become increasingly clear and compelling, even if the metrics for measuring success are still evolving, and more companies are viewing social media as a lead-in to a marketing plan as opposed to an afterthought." "Relative to traditional mass media buys, a small percentage of which generate positive ROI, social media marketing can be a cost-effective way for a company to achieve some key marketing objectives.” "Building brand visibility and market awareness by turning consumers into advocates and / or inducing them to share viral

content that lends credibility and extends the reach of a brand are good reasons to launch a social media

marketing program."

The full Aberdeen Group report is available for purchase online at:

http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5639-RA-social-media-marketing.asp

ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

The Big Picture Of course Social Media Marketing is just one important facet of a comprehensive

marketing strategy. Other vital elements of any online marketing approach should

include Natural Search Engine Optimization, Paid Search Engine Marketing, Landing

Page Optimization and Word of Mouth Tracking and Optimization, at a minimum. For

that purpose, here are additional questions about Social Media and the areas mentioned

above - that may prove valuable to you.

20 Useful Questions

1. How do you measure, track and plan for social media, referrals and

word of mouth?

2. Do you have a social media sharing strategy in place? Do you make it

easy for website visitors to share your content via services like StumbleUpon,

Reddit and Delicious?

3. Do you understand the value of having your company’s content

promoted on Digg.com? Do you know how to enable site visitors to “digg”

your articles?

4. Does your business have a Facebook presence?

(a) If so, how many fans or members do you have? Do you have a strategy

in place to handle content, community building, and/or events?

(b) Are you using Facebook’s Advertising platform?

5. Does your business have a LinkedIn presence? In addition to the social

media marketing benefits, this presence also serves as an online business

directory.

6. Have you taken advantage of what directories like DMOZ, LinkedIn

and AboutUs.org offer for free? Do you have a Link Building initiative under

way?

7. Are you listed on other major directories like Yahoo! and ZoomInfo?

Do you understand the benefit of being a part of their directories?

8. Are you aware there are well over 200 directories that offer your

business an opportunity to be listed and create a link to your website?

Many have a free service, all pass SEO value, and most pass PR value to your site.

Are you interested in pursuing an inbound linking strategy involving directories?

9. Do you understand the difference and the importance between

quality and quantity of inbound links to your company’s website? Do

you have the tools and process in place to help you evaluate these attributes?

ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

10. Is your website fully optimized for Natural Search? Even if you’re

utilizing paid search pay per click, are you getting all the free / natural traffic you

possibly can?

11. Are you familiar with what a 301 redirect is and how it impacts the overall

number of links attributed to your business? Do you have one in place? If yes, is it

pointed to your root (http:yourcompany.com) or your www.yourcompany.com

address, and why?

12. Are you familiar with the role of meta data, meta tags, meta descriptions

and anchor text and how they impact your business not only from a search

perspective, but from a social media / linking approach?

13. Do you know about the trends and analysis tools that are available at

no cost / low cost online from companies like Google and Facebook?

Are you interested in learning more?

14. If your company or organization has a blog, is it hosted on your

business domain (i.e. blog.yourcompany.com) or is all the traffic benefitting

someone else’s business (i.e. yourcompany.blogspot.com or

yourcompany.blogger.com)?

15. Are you aware that YouTube has become the 2nd biggest search

engine? Have you thought about the ramifications for your business? Are you

already taking advantage of online video? Do you have content on YouTube and

other video sharing sites today? Do you have an Online Video strategy in place?

16. Once you have video content, do you have plans to make that content

readily available to search engines – to be displayed alongside regular

search content (not just in YouTube)?

17. Do you know what percentage of your website traffic comes from

word of mouth / referrals? If so, how do you track this metric? Are you

interested in putting more formal/effective measurements in place?

18. Does your company do a meaningful percentage of its business

outside of North America? Are you familiar with the Social Media sites that

are most influential in each region in which you conduct business?

19. To what degree does your business rely on growth – new traffic, new

leads, new sales?

1. If B-to-B-focused: Does your sales team have a need for new, qualified

leads?

2. If Consumer-focused B-to-C: Are you in need of new sources of low-cost

traffic? Can your ecommerce site scale?

ymarketing ▪ 3050 Pullman Street ▪ Costa Mesa ▪ CA 92626 Tel: 1.877.736.4321

20. Have you considered creating widgets, gadgets and other online

applications or downloads? Are you curious on how you could use this

strategy in your business?

If you have questions or would like additional information on any of the topics covered in this

document, please feel welcome to contact us at www.ymarketing.com or by phone at

1.877.736.4321 (ext 716 or 712).

About ymarketing

Founded in 2002, ymarketing is a full-service digital marketing agency based in Southern California. We

implement integrated online marketing programs including affiliate, display, eMail, natural search, paid

search, blog and social media by utilizing best-of-breed analytical applications. Ymarketing is a Google

Certified Partner and AdWords Qualified Company, a Microsoft adExcellence Company and a Yahoo!

Search Marketing Ambassador.

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