Is there a Method to Social Media Madness?

Co-authored by: Sanjeev Aggarwal and Laurie McCabe, SMB Group, and Brent Leary, CRM Essentials  SMB adoption of social media for sales, marketing, product development and customer service is on the rise – but how are SMBs tracking, analyzing and measuring the success of their social media endeavors?

In our joint SMB Group-CRM Essentials “2011 Small and Medium Business Social Business Study,” we surveyed 750 SMB (small business is 1-99 employees; medium business is 100-999 employees) decision-makers about their use and plans for social media for sales, marketing, customer service and support, product development, HR and other business functions.

Featured Study Highlights

To put social media adoption in context, we asked several questions to better understand how SMBs accomplish their business objectives though different channels and mechanisms, including, “How does your currently track, analyze and measure the success of the company’s social media efforts?”

In the medium business segment, 52% of respondents indicate that they currently use social media. Among these respondents, about 19% say they use it in and “ad hoc, informal” way, while 33% indicate they use it in a “structured, strategic” manner. When we take a deeper look at how medium businesses using social media track, analyze and measure success of social media efforts, we see that companies that take a strategic approach are more likely to incorporate a greater number and more actionable metrics to measure social media effectiveness than their informal, ad hoc counterparts (Figure 1).

• For strategic users, actionable, customer-centric metrics such as referrals (14%), click-through rates (12%), and inbound links (11%) top the list. These are followed by social media measurements such as number of followers and friends (9%), and sentiment analysis (9%), along with anecdotal feedback (9%).
  
  
•  Companies that use social media in an ad hoc manner are more likely to rate “softer” measurements, such as anecdotal favorable feedback (6%) and buzz from social media (4%) as top tracking criteria and yardsticks for success.

Not surprisingly, SMBs that take a structured, strategic approach–and use more actionable metrics–are also more satisfied with the results of their social media efforts than those engaging in an ad hoc manner.

This underscores the need for better integration of social media with traditional sales, marketing, and service/support solutions–along with better tools to track and measure results.

Figure 1: Medium Business: Comparison of Strategic and Ad Hoc Users Criteria to Track and Measure Social Media Implementation

 

 

 

 

 

Quick Take

For SMBs to truly evolve into “social businesses,” they need to be able to easily track, measure and tweak the results of their social media investments across a wide range of business activities, from marketing through customer service and product development.

Although the social media drumbeat is loud, SMBs’ enthusiasm will be curbed if they can’t figure out what impact their social media initiatives are having. Whether on their own or via partner solutions, vendors will need to give SMBs the tools they need to integrate and evaluate social media efforts into their larger business strategy and framework.

Because social media engagement does not occur in a vacuum, businesses will want to measure social media efforts in context of broader sales, marketing and customer service or other initiatives. Although collaboration, CRM, marketing automation and other vendors are integrating social media into their existing solutions, few provide the analytics required to track and measure the effectiveness of social media and its different channels in an actionable and streamlined manner.

Social Business: Why Having a Plan Matters

Co-authored by: Laurie McCabe and Sanjeev Aggarwal, SMB Group, and Brent Leary, CRM Essentials

 

Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true.
Lester R. Bittel, The Nine Master Keys of Management

This seems to be especially true when it comes to getting business value out of social media. We recently wrapped up fielding for our joint SMB Group-CRM Essentials “2011 Small and Medium Business Social Business Study,” in which we surveyed 750 SMB (small business is 1-99 employees; medium business is 100-999 employees) decision-makers regarding their use, plans and perceptions about social media.

Although SMB interest and adoption of social media to assist with a variety of business functions—from generating leads to product development—is sky-rocketing, the question remains of how and where SMBs are actually deriving business value remains. Our study took an in-depth look at the specific activities and functions that SMBs are using social media for.

While Sanjeev Aggarwal, partner Brent Leary of CRM Essentials and I are just beginning to immerse ourselves in this very rich gold mine of data, one thing is clear:  SMBs that use social media in a “strategic and structured way” to interact with customers and prospects are much more likely to be deriving benefit from their social media investments than those who are using social media in an “ad hoc, informal” way.

Today, SMBs are most likely to be actively using social media to help with marketing and sales functions–including generating more web site traffic, generating more leads, connecting with people who aren’t yet customers, improving market awareness for their brand, reputation enhancement and creating more/better interaction with customers.

As shown on Figure 1, survey results show that those that have a more formal and structured strategy are more likely to be satisfied or very satisfied with the outcomes than those that are using social media in an informal, ad hoc way. For instance, among small businesses:

• 39% of respondents using social media are very satisfied/satisfied with the results of using social media to “create more/better interaction with customers/prospects,” as opposed 24% of those using it an ad hoc manner.
  
• 37% of structured users are very satisfied/satisfied with using social media to generate more web site traffic, compared to just 14% of ad hoc users.
  
• 37% of structured users are very satisfied/satisfied with using social media to improve market awareness for the company, in contrast to 16% of ad hoc users.

Figure 1: Comparison of Small Business Satisfaction with Social Media for Business Activities: Structured vs. Ad Hoc Users

 

While we have about 30 other questions and a seemingly endless array of cross-tabs to mull over in terms of the study, one thing is already crystal clear: To get the most business value from your social media investment, you need to pause and plan—in addition to playing with—social media activities.

For more information about this study, click here.

SMBs Open a New Front Door with Mobile Web Sites

Ten years ago, SMBs were just beginning to understand the need for and value of building web sites and storefronts. Today, SMBs are at a similar point when it comes to building mobile web sites and enabling mobile transactions. Why is this important? 4.8 billion users browse the web via a mobile device compared to 1.7 billion users who browse the web via other means, such as a laptop of PC (source: ITU, October 2010).

SMB Adoption and Plans for Mobile Web Sites

Figure 1 – Plans for Mobile Website

Our recently published SMB Group market study, “2010 Small and Medium Business Mobile Solutions Study,” reveals that SMBs understand the importance of mobile friendly websites and plan to invest in a mobile web presence in order to help fuel their growth. In the very small businesses (1-19 employees) segment, only 11% have some mobile web presence, while in companies with more than 500 employees, 44% have created a mobile-friendly site.

With interest and adoption of smartphones, tablets and mobile applications exploding, both small and medium business have very aggressive plans to ramp up activity and functionality on the mobile web site front. These businesses view mobile web sites as a key mechanism to attracting new customers, improving customer service and retention, and growing revenues.

From an industry perspective, financial services/banking and professional services firms are taking the lead in deploying mobile web sites today. Going forward, retail, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and education have very aggressive plans to establish a mobile web presence within the next 12 months. Many startups are choosing to start by developing their web presence through a mobile design paradigm first, from which they can then create a traditional web site.

What Information and Transactions are SMBs Offering and Planning for on Their Mobile Web Sites?

The most common types of information that SMBs with mobile web sites provide today include business contact information, available from 79% of SMBs’ mobile web sites; product and service information, offered on 71% of these sites; operating hours, listed by 65%; location applications, available from 60%.

SMB use of mobile web sites for transactions is more nascent, but is picking up steam. Today, 28% of SMBs with mobile web sites offer customers capabilities to schedule appointments or make reservations; 10% use mobile advertisements; and 8% mobile coupons. SMBs that don’t currently offer these capabilities have very aggressive plans to ramp up these services in 2011–up to 53% for certain functions.

High-growth and market leading SMB companies already have a mobile web-presence or are planning one in the next 12 months. In addition to this, depending on the industry, these SMBs are also very aggressively looking at enabling mobile transactions on their mobile websites. With upwards of 29 million smartphone users and 3 to 4 million tablet users, SMBs see the urgency of having a mobile web presence.

More information and a Table of Contents is available for this study click here: 2010 Small and Medium Business Mobile Solutions Study.

Technology Solution and Services Purchasing Cycle Decision Markers in Small Businesses

Small companies will tend to have a less formal purchasing process than their larger counterparts Typically only one or two people will have purchasing authority—usually the company officers in small businesses with the guidance of the IT person, if there is one.

How a company purchases or acquires technology products and services is affected by company size. The size of an SMB and the type of IT organization that they have influences and reflects the technology choices the SMB make. Typically, a small business (defined as a company with 1-99 employees) will have either no IT resources at all or one full-time IT resource.

The technology solutions and services purchase cycle typically involves 4 stages: Identify Need, Evaluate Solution, Select Solution, and Final Purchase Decision. The persons involved in each of these four stages of the process are different as is their level of involvement at each stage, which is usually dictated by the size of the small business, technology sophistication and sometimes the age of the primary decision maker (usually the owner or CEO) in these companies. Figure 1 provides details of all those involved in these technology solution and services purchase decisions at small business in North America.

Figure 1: Personnel Involved in Technology Solution Purchase Process at Small
Businesses (1-99 employees)

Source: SMB Group, 2010

• Identify Need. In more than 75 percent of the cases, the owner of the business is the person involved in identifying need for technology solutions and services support from a end-user employee or senior business manager (non IT). This is usually based on the business pain points the small business is experiencing and how the use of these technology solutions will help address them. Only 21 percent of the cases involve in-house IT personnel in identifying need for technology solutions and services.
• Evaluate Solutions. The role of line-of-business managers and end-users becomes more important in evaluating different solution alternatives, often they are involved with doing a free trial of these solution more frequently online but also sometime by downloading applications. The in-house IT person assists with the technical requirements for the evaluation and the owner is also usually involved in about 60 percent of the evaluations. Small business technology environments are straightforward but in some cases may require some advanced features; small businesses are rarely leading-edge technology adopters. In a small percentage of cases small businesses solicit the help of industry colleagues and/or external VARs and consultants in these more advanced and complex evaluations. The results of these evaluations helps small businesses reduce the number of evaluated solutions to a “short list” driven by predefined criteria.
• Select Solutions. This step is completed by the owner/CEO and the In-house IT person based on the evaluation of various solutions. The factors involved in the selection process are price, ease-of-use, higher quality and stronger brand. As companies grow, the focus shifts from price and ease-of-use to quality and stronger brand as reviews from analysts and social media become more important.
• Final Purchase Decision. In almost all small businesses, the owner or CEO of the business makes the final purchase decision, with the line of business executive or the in-house IT executive contributing in a limited role.

The insights included in the blog are from a comprehensive SMB study on “SMB Routes to Market for Technology Solutions“. The SMB Group’s 2010 Routes to SMB Market Study helps Technology software solutions vendors and services providers identify routes (channels) to the SMB market for their products and services based on how they go about making purchase decisions. Study results and analysis will help them make well-informed marketing, product development, media and channel decisions to successfully reach, influence and market to North American SMBs with one to 1000 employees.