Getting a sharper picture of social media’s influence

Over the past decade, marketers have increasingly turned to social-media networks social media marketing ideas like Facebook and Twitter to create buzz around their products. But what impact do tweets and other recommendations have on sales, and how can companies get a bigger return on their investments in these important channels? To get a clearer view, we examined social media marketing packages the purchase decisions of 20,000 European consumers, across 30 product areas and more than 100 brands, in 2013 and 2014. Respondents were asked how significantly social media influenced their decision journeys and about instances when they themselves recommended products.1 We found that the impact of social media marketing proposal on buying decisions is greater than previously estimated and growing fast, but that its influence varies significantly across product categories. Moreover, only a small slice of social influencers are creating the buzz. Social recommendations induced an average of 26 percent of purchases across all product categories, according to our data. That’s substantially higher than thesocial media marketing for dummies 10 to 15 percent others have estimated.2 For the 30 product categories we studied, roughly two-thirds of the impact was direct; that is, recommendations played a critical role at the point of purchase. The remaining third was indirect: social media had an effect at earlier decision-journey touch points—for example, when a recommendation created initial awareness of a product or interactions with friends or other influencers helped consumers social media marketing definition to compare product attributes or to evaluate higher-value features. We found that in 2014, consumers made 10 percent more purchases on the back of social-media recommendations than they had in 2013.Consumers, we found, access social media to very different social media marketing firm degrees in different product categories. At the low end, only about 15 percent of our respondents reported using social media in choosing utility services. For other categories, such as travel, investment services, and over-the-counter drugs, 40 to 50 percent of consumers looked to social recommendations.Product categories tend to have their own discrete social media marketing firms groups of influencers. Our data showed that the overlap of recommenders between any two consumer categories was very small—a maximum of 15 percent for any two pairs of products we analyzed. Timing matters as well: a first-time purchaser, for example social media marketing books is roughly 50 percent more likely to turn to social media than a repeat buyer. While the role of digital influence is expanding, the analog world remains important. Among the more than 100 brands we studied, about half of the recommendations were made offline—in person or by phone. Offline conversations were up to 40 percent more likely than digital interactions to influence purchase social media in marketing decisions of products such as insurance or utilities.

Growing an Audience & Running Large Business Events, with Mike Stelzner

If you’re the person behind last year’s “best online small business social media marketing event on the planet” – how do you top it, how do you make it even better the next year? And if you already had 7.5 million unique viewers to your web site last year, what are you doing this year to grow and expand your audience? Those are just a few of the questions social media marketing plan sample and topics I talk about with my guest today, Mike Stelzner. Mike is the owner and founder of Social Media Examiner, host of the Social Media Marketing social media marketing articles Podcast and an all-around, brilliant entrepreneur. Mike and I met for the first time at New Media Expo in January of this year and I had a chance to get to know him very well in our short time together at the meetup that myself, Pat Flynn and Cliff Ravenscraft held for over 100 people. He’s on the marketing on social media bleeding edge of all things social media, so it was an honor to have him join me for an episode of The New Business Podcast. Why letting go of things, even the things he is really good at, has been liberating for Mike and it will be for you too. The social media marketing campaign digital addiction most entrepreneurs deal with and how it stops us, Mike included, from being present and turning off after our work day is done. Why Mike believes podcasting is just on the brink of exploding, why Apple is already on top of the medium, but how he social media marketing degree believes Google is about to join the party, too. The nuts and bolts of how he built last year’s Social Media Marketing World, including why he built a community component into every piece of the conference. What has catapulted my own speaking career in the last 2-years. Before meeting Mike in Vegas this year, I had listened to his podcast and followed his journey with SME, so social media marketing los angeles I thought I knew a bit about him. But after spending some face to face time with him, I really gained a true appreciation for the depth of his social media knowledge and how forward-thinking he is in his business ventures.Our research shows that a small number of active influencers accounted for a disproportionate share of total recommendations (exhibit). These power users are even more significant for product categories such as shoes and clothing: 5 percent of the social media marketing strategy template recommenders accounted for 45 percent of the social influence generated.I was stoked to have him on the show and to hear what he has in store for the 2014 Social Media Marketing World conference and his other endeavors. It’s exciting to watch it all unfold for him and to learn from what he’s doing social media marketing resume– take notes, people!

Navigating in a changing environment

As companies look to maximize returns from their social media marketing campaigns strategies, they can both encourage would-be customers to engage in more social interactions and inspire more influencers to express enthusiasm for their products. On the demand side, our research suggests that online articles written by journalists prompt consumers to seek out social media to further inform social media marketing service purchases (and that public-relations spending to generate such articles may be a worthwhile investment). Consumers who use search engines to gain some initial knowledge of a product are also more likely to tune in to social media before a purchase. Companies that social media marketing conference spend effectively on search-engine optimization (to move their product mentions to the top of search results) can expect to benefit from a greater social-media impact, as well. Television advertising, by contrast, tends to act as a substitute for social media rather than complementing it. Relatively few customers were prompted to seek effective social media marketingout social influences after viewing a TV spot.3 On the supply side, prompting the long tail of less active influencers may require creativity and a greater use of data analytics. Our research found, paradoxically, that if companies allowed endorsements only, they generated a less strong response than companies that invited any sort of comment. Positive social media as a marketing toolremarks were three times more numerous than negative ones, and some companies demonstrated that they could turn negative vibes to their advantage by responding quickly. Other companies are amplifying positive noise by making the recommenders’ data “speak.” Through machine learning and the application of advanced analytics to recommenders’ profiles, they obtain a granular understanding of product preferences and purchasing behavior. That analysis becomes a key input into sophisticated recommendation engines that identify potential customers and send them messages such as “purchasers social media marketing pricing you bought this appliance” at key points along the decision journey. These engines are highly effective at converting customers,4 though with an important caveat: the influence the engines generate can be as much as 75 percent lower if messages social media marketing blog aren’t highly personalized and targeted. The pathways of social influence are shifting constantly. Looking ahead, better mobile devices and more robust social applications will make it even easier to share experiences social media marketing experts about products and services. Companies can’t afford to fall behind this powerful curve.