Sunday 29 September 2013

Calculating Social Media ROI for SeaWorld


Companies today are investing more and more in social technologies to increase their profit margin.  Since Web 2.0 are user driven and the internet users consequently became content creator and distributor which allow them to become more interactive and “social” in such community. The Social economy report, McKinsey Global Institute, 2012 estimated that in 2011, 72% of organizations are adopting social technologies to run their businesses and 90% see business benefits from this adoption. It also has been indicated that customers will benefit from social media providing better products, lower prices, transparency between competitors and faster responses to changing needs. Overall, these benefits will all ultimately increase customer satisfaction.

Unlike any other technologies, calculating social media Return on Investment (ROI) is an overwhelming task because it is challenging to define gains and costs when measuring ROI for social media activities. Most social media benefits are indirect or intangible which makes it difficult to populate the benefits in a balance sheet. However, to be able to calculate ROI, a company should set a clear business strategy to ensure social media initiatives are supporting business goals.


Today, I would like to discuss how the ROI was calculated for a selected case example, SeaWorld San Antonio, one of the three largest parks in the SeaWorld chain in the United States. Before launching their new journey to Atlantis roller coaster, they decided to adopt social media tools by creating a YouTube channel and Flicker account to reach and engage as a wide range of people as they can.

Costs
The following three categories enable a better estimation of costs:

ü  Number of people who worked on the campaign, amount of time and their hourly rate.

ü  Setting up different media tools and marketing materials.

ü  Costs for the technology, meaning the implementation for the campaign.

(I made a reasonable assumptions to calculate costs and benefits based on discussions here and here on how to calculate ROI for social media marketing).

Social media program setup
$10,000
Setup of social media accounts, including employee time
$2,500
Social media monitoring
$7,500
Content production, including employee time
$12,900
Quantity of materials
30
Employee time
21.5 hours
Hourly rate
$20
Setting up social media marketing campaigns
$21,000

Total costs for the campaign was around $44,000.


Benefits

SeaWorld San Antonio conducted a survey to differentiate social media visitors from others. By using a formula to apply a value for each visitor to the park, they determined both tangible and intangible benefits.

Increase sales (i.e. new customers)
$900,000
Increased communications with customers*
$600,000
Research value: customer insights
$350,000
Increased retention rate
$450,000
Customer satisfaction*
$300,000

*intangible benefits

 The social media marketing resulted in $2.6 million revenue.

Applying the ROI formula, which is:



 Resulted in





This ROI result indicates that SeaWorld San Antonio successfully benefited from implementing social media solutions in their business while putting their goals and objectives beside their implementation strategy.

What other metrics should SeaWorld San Antonio take into account?

 
"A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is - it is what consumers tell each other it is."
Scott Cook, Co- Founder of Intuit

Thursday 19 September 2013

Social Networking Strategies - Monitoring with Woolworths

I have discussed earlier the benefits of implementing social media in an organization. More interestingly, companies should establish, in advance, a social media strategy to gain the benefits they are looking for, which can be achieved by monitoring, understanding and response to their social media activities. In today’s post, I would like to explore a range of social media monitoring tools in a selected case organization and to share my insights about their social media behaviour.

Woolworths, one of the leading supermarket businesses in Australia, is now attempting to solve a business challenge by creating a better customer shopping experience and increasing customer loyalty. Woolworths currently has many different kinds of digital platforms and information systems such as social networks, official e-commerce website, and a mobile application.
 
 As stated in the The Social economy report, McKinsey Global Institute, 2012 , social technology providers have “social Analytics” tools to analyze real time data and make a better use of such tools. This analysis is ultimately used to manage either company or client brand communications and demonstrate a Return on Investment from social media marketing.
 
Topsy
Topsy is a tool to search tweets, links, photos, videos and show different kinds of statistics as most social analytical tools do, where you can get the latest news or articles about an organization. Woolworths uses social media tools such as Facebook and YouTube to gain customer insights about their products and how they could improve or even develop new products in the future. These tools also enable Woolworths to more effectively interact with customers and to broaden and deepen their marketing by frequently post their latest news and information and to receive fast and accurate responses. Their collection of responses can provide valid feedback of recent sales promotions. An interesting feature in Tobsy is that it enables the company to gain competitive insights and analyze competitor campaigns and web traffic. It uses precise metrics to model current trends, against competitors, or even predict future outcomes. As it can be seen in the graph below graph, Woolworths is not engaging very well in Twitter compared with its competitor, Aldi, and should then enhance their presence to achieve or overcome competitors.
 
 
Addictomatic
This analytical tool aggregates information about the company from different resources and most interestingly Woolworths uses most of the social media tools, except Twitter, to ensure it reaches their broader customer base and increase brand loyalty. It additionally customizes social networks as a marketing channel to promote for new products because social media is now able to create a sense of transparency between the customers and lets them influence their “friends list” or at least recommend products to them.
To sum up, a company should listen to what their customers are saying online and respond in a timely manner if they are willing to have a successful social business. Woolworths might integrate some social media features into their existing mobile application to help in the smooth processing of information and allow more customers to communicate effectively with them in a real-time response. @Woolworths
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Thursday 12 September 2013

Microblogging and Allianz Real Estate

I have discussed some of social media tools that assist productivity in an earlier blog post, particularly by using Wikis and Google Docs. Apart from that, there are other social media tools such as blogs and microblogs. In contrast to the blog, microblogging, as defined by Wikipedia, accept smaller amount of content rather than the normal blog. It allows the users to have a two-way communication, have a small conversations and exchange content such as short sentences, images or even video links where you listen and share ideas with others. In this blog post, I’m going to attempt a microblogging value levers for Allianz Real Estate.




Allianz Real Estate is a well-known holding company that based in Munich and Paris and is considered as one of the world's leading property investment and asset managers. They also expand their business to provide and manage commercial real estate loans in different countries. In addition to their official website, Allianz Real Estate communication also takes place in the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook and Google+.




As indicated in the The Social economy report, McKinsey Global Institute, 2012 that professional services depend on social media to conduct the work and sometimes develop new business which is the biggest opportunity to make interactions in more efficient and effective ways through social technologies such as collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Product Development

Implementing Web 2.0 tools help the organization to develop products or services based on customer preferences. Allianz Real Estate have used Twitter to gain more knowledge and communicate product development information in shaping their products by listening to customers‘ conversations. This also make them being able to comment, answer customer queries and provide feedback to people which was not available in other forms of public interface. Introducing Twitter and other interaction tools such as blogs can support product development and co-creation of new development model which differentiate the company with this competitive advantages.


Communication and Customer Service

Web 2.0 tools provide effective ways to open up conversation with customers. In case of Allianz Real Estate, they focus on improving client experience and offering them with highly customized offers. They can talk directly to customers using Twitter to get feedback, information or any ideas from customers. Having such a communication between companies and their customers establishing credibility for the organization and to attract more people to investigate in the company.


And here is an interesting statistics about different social media tools nowadays.



To sum up, Social media can be a powerful and cost-effective channel for any business that strives to produce new products and build brand awareness and credibility between customers. Allianz Real Estate have successfully interact and communicate with a wide range of customers in a timely and effective ways.
What other strategies can Allianz Real Estate could follow to enhance their business?
 

Wednesday 4 September 2013

Social Media Best Practices for Non-Profit Organizations


As I mentioned in the previous post about the benefits of implementing social media tools to assist organizations reach more people in more efficient and effective ways, some organizations have had great success in implementing Enterprise 2.0 while others, unluckily, have not seen the success they dreamed about.

Today, I would like to discuss the benefits of implementing Enterprise 2.0 for a non-profit organization. Firstly, few of the biggest value levers benefiting non-profits today will be presented, including fundraising, creating and expanding volunteer networks, and how they retain support to give an organization insight into quality touch-points from organization to user.

Kiva is a non-profit organization that aims to “connect people through lending to alleviate poverty”. It allows people leveraging the internet to lend money to people in developing countries. Kiva lets individuals lend as little as $25 to help create an opportunity around the world. Anyone can reach Kiva through Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or simply visit their official website to initiate a lend. Additionally, they established a YouTube channel to show the real stories and encourage people to loan others.
Mobilize Resources
As stated in The Social economy..., McKinsey Global Institute, 2012, social technology is an ideal way to find and keep donors to target the people willing to help the organization in achieving their mission.

Fundraise
Leveraging social media in non-profit organization increases fundraising totals by up to 40% making Twitter and Facebook an ideal solution for Kiva to start in the social media. They established a two-way communication by approaching stories in a personal and heart breaking way, and by doing so allow more people to engage in the community and lend to others as the least they can.

Create and expand volunteer network

Kiva was radically changed by social media when they ran the “invite challenge” campaign. They challenged their users to invite others to “try Kiva for free” through their different channels such as Facebook and Twitter. They offered Kiva t-shirts to those who successfully invited five or more friends. More interestingly, in less than 24 hours, more than 8000 people came to their website for the first time to offer loans to borrowers in need all over the world.

Retain support

Social networks help Kiva build awareness and growth in the organization through social media. Kiva, recently, launched KivaZip which creates a direct connection between lenders and borrowers. This transparency in the loan process eventually connects people all over the world with a goal to increase poor people opportunities to have a loan.

Overall, Kiva has successfully implemented Enterprise 2.0 tools to fundraise, expand their volunteer network and retain support.  +Kiva @kiva

What other ways can Kiva consider to achieve their mission and expand their volunteer community?