Working Three

As the year begins to wind down, before the party season gets underway, it is worth putting time aside to take stock and plan for the the coming months. Over the course of this year, this column has discussed many of the facets of social media management. We have looked at how to grow a social media following, and how to manage that fan base once you have it. With a view towards 2012 we now need to think about the most important aspect of all – how to convert your social media ‘friends’ into customers.

Much has been discussed about return on investment in the social media space. Some commentators say ROI needs to focus on areas like brand perception and customer satisfaction – but these can be hard to measure accurately. While I agree that these areas need to be taken into consideration, not having well defined metrics and ignoring conversion goals simply makes no sense. In short, there needs to be alignment with the business objectives.

The great thing about social media is it allows you to capture vast quantities of demographic and psychometric data. This data can, and should, be used for targeted messaging. The segments you market to will be fairly broad to start with, but will become increasingly granular over time. After testing the waters, it will be possible to economically communicate to individuals with tailored messaging – messaging that understands the individual on a personal level.

You don’t always need a ‘hard sell’ approach to move potential customers down a sales conversion path. Sometimes it’s enough to show them that you know and care, and are prepared to communicate on a personal level. In this ultra-personalised digital world, your market – particularly younger demographics – now expect everything to be personalised. In fact it is often the only way to get noticed.

A research report published in October this year from the Australian Centre of Retail Studies concluded that the more channels in which a consumer encounters a particular brand, the more likely they are to purchase, and the higher their overall spend will be. The lesson here is not rocket science. Once you have used social media to develop your contact list, find out how to communicate with them via email, mobile, social media and your website. Get all the channels working together.

The final step on the conversion journey is the execution. Communicating in a customised way via multiple channels can be expensive if there is not a strong system sitting in the background. What’s more, these interactions in social media mean that you are never sure when someone will take the first step in the conversion cycle. Platforms like ExactTarget allow you to not only automate communications through many different channels, but also provide the necessary tools to refine the sales strategy as additional customer data flows in.

So it is possible to create an effective social media conversion strategy. Just remember to keep things simple, and stay focused on what the customer wants.