Is it Possible to Convert Social Media Presence to Profit - Research Paper Example

A Review of Social Media Sites Is it Possible to Convert Social Media Presence to Profit? Name of Student: Student No: Date: Name of Supervisor: Dear Sir or Madam, As agreed in our (insert date) contract, we are submitting the attached report entitled A Review of Social Media Sites Best Practises: Is it Possible to Convert Social Media Presence to Profit? This report examines the problem of monetizing one’s presence on social media websites. As evidenced by Forbes List of Most Powerful Celebrities, it is possible to turn social media presence into currency but the issue becomes how this is done. A number of case studies will be examined of how certain organizations have attempted to use social media to increase their market share and relevant conclusions drawn. I hope you find this report satisfactory. Yours Sincerely, Name of Student Executive Summary Social media presence has become more of a necessity than an option for organisations and individuals. This is because a large number of consumers are using online forums as a source of reference and information, and spending a large amount of time interacting on social media. In the spirit of going where the consumer is, then the business organisation or individual seeking to increase their market share needs to engage with them at their level. As illustrated by the Celebrity 100 list, the individuals on the Forbes Most Powerful List are also quite high in social ranking. This implies that there is a correlation between social media and business success. On the other hand, there are various independent artistes, businesses and organisations that cannot seem to harness the power of social media to their profit. This research will seek to find the answer to this riddle. An examination of various case studies revealed that there are various common threads that indicate success in manipulation of social media. However these threads are not measurable in an independent, reproducible way using the analytical tools available. Google Analytics is helpful in tracking and monitoring traffic but there is no direct correlation that links this traffic to sales. This is the next level of research to be undertaken. The conclusion reached is that while it is possible to benefit from social media, it is not currently possible to measure by just how much. table of contents 1 LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL Error: Reference source not found 2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Error: Reference source not found 3 INTRODUCTION Error: Reference source not found 3.1 Benefits of Social Media Error: Reference source not found 3.2 Problem Definition Error: Reference source not found 3.3 Background to the Problem Error: Reference source not found A Review of Social Media Sites 1 Is it Possible to Convert Social Media Presence to Profit? 1 Letter of Transmittal 3 6 REFERENCES Error: Reference source not found list of figures1 Cause And Effect Error: Reference source not found 2 Social Commerce Study Error: Reference source not found 3 Sprout Special Dashboard Error: Reference source not found 4 Womma Study On What It Costs To Have An Effective Social Media Effort Error: Reference source not found 5 Value of Facebook Fans Error: Reference source not found 6 Percentage Benefit of Social Media According to Marketers Error: Reference source not found Introduction Social media sites can be described as virtual communities aimed at promoting and facilitating social interaction among members. They do this by giving a forum to post personal information and intercommunicate with users. It usually begins with registration to a site, followed by repeated visits to the site to interact with others strengthens one’s networks. The majority of social media sites are open to everyone but some give certain parameters for membership such as age group or a certain group of people in the real world, or people in certain fields of work only. Some of the more popular websites include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, MySpace, Bebo and Last.fm. Communication is accomplished via posting of blogs, messages, updates, streaming music, videos or files and chatting. Social media sites are subdivided into smaller, more focused groups such as Facebook which has groups to do with people’s former schools, current occupations or interests. LinkedIn offers portals for people in the same or similar organisations or interest groups to congregate. Self-promotion by members of these sites is achieved when they post their personal profiles and interests whose data enables other users to decide whether they wish to interact with them or not. Social networking has been criticised by some as a facilitator of stalkers and con artists and leads to invasion of privacy. These sites have been used by law enforcement and potential employees to glean information on their person of interest. Benefits of Social Media Utilising social media can be helpful in better understanding, responding and attracting the attention of specified audiences. It can facilitate real-time mutual communication with individuals from within a portal of common interest. Social media is able to increase access to these audiences and better the accessibility to communication. It also helps in more active participation in the relationships between people, organisations and governments. There is also larger scope to amend or refocus communication in an expedient manner should it prove necessary and makes cost effectiveness of communication better in the long term. There is also increased speed in feedback and ability to target the audience with a specific message (Semple, 2009). Social Media This is user-generated content online which is posted in order to be shared with others and provoke a response from them (Wright and Hinson, 2009). It is one of the most common ways to interact socially globally in contemporary society (Wright & Hinson, 2009). Social media tools include message boards, Really Simple Syndication (RSS), Podcasts, photo and video sharing, blogs, Wikis, social networks and micro-blogging sites (Wright & Hinson, 2009). More innovative forms of social media are mapping and geotagging, which are location services. Terms that are related to social media included Computer Mediated Communication or CMC which refers to the conversations that take place through the aegis of technology-based social media platforms (Palen, et al, 2009). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) refers to the entire sphere of the world wide web and social media and it has made the location of information and expansion of social interaction and communication patterns easier (Palen, et al, 2009). Social Networking Sites This can be classified as one category of social media (Gupta, et al, 2010) and are characterised by the creation of a public profile by the user which gives demographic and personal data and whose visibility is dependent upon the user’s privacy settings (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Social networks list users who are interconnected and enable them to observe these connections online and keep track with their activity on the site (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). These sites exists to facilitate relationships, some of which precede the site while others come about through meeting on the site (Li and Bernoff, 2008). SixDegrees.com was the first acknowledged social networking site, incepted in 1997 (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). This was followed by such sites as LiveJournal, LunarStorm, Cyworld and Ryze.com between 1997 and 2001 (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). Friendster was the next major networking site, in 2002, followed by MySpace and LinkedIn in 2003. Flickr and Facebook came into existence in 2004 while YouTube was incepted in 2005. Twitter came into being in 2006 (Boyd and Ellison, 2008).According to Li and Bernoff, 25% of adults in the U.S visit a social networking site at least once a month. Problem Definition While social media is extremely helpful in assisting people from different geographical, demographic or social backgrounds to interact, using it as a means of marketing is somewhat more complicated. Monetising the effect of social media is something of a problem considering that there are no instruments that can be used to measure such conversion, not sponsored by the social media sites themselves. The problem then becomes, is it possible to convert social media marketing into money and how effective is it as a marketing tool for individuals and firms? In order to gauge the effect of social media on conversion to financial success, we shall look at the Forbes Social Media list as well as e-published authors and attempt to gauge from the experiences of these two groups how effective social media is as a marketing tool. Background to the Problem Figure 1: Cause and Effect. Source: DVorkin, 2012 In an article by Dvorkin (2012) Forbes note they have experienced an increase in visibility as a result of social media and this visibility has translated to growth in sales as indicated in Figure 1. They claim this is due to their increased presence on Facebook and Twitter news streams and other sites where articles from different writers provoke discussions. They claim that the secret to their success is quality, quantity and variety. According to the article, Omniture recorded 31.5 million unique visits to the Forbes website in the month of July. This represents a significant increase as the same time a year earlier, only 18.5 million unique visitors were at the site. The number of posts published numbered almost 8000 from a pool of 1000 expert writers, frequently numbering 400 in a single day and covering topics such as investment, business entrepreneurs, technology and leadership. On the other end of the scale, Morrison (2012) has claimed that there are defects in the attempt to monetise social media especially in the field of self-epublishing. It has been claimed by many such as at the 2011 London College of Communication’s iGeneration conference that authors can succeed by building an internet platform and social media was the only way to sell books. It has been claimed by Scott Pack who is a blogger, publisher and author that mainstream media is no longer effective as a way to sell books and the internet is the only way to go. In practise though, this does not prove to be the case. Several case studies have been done to prove social media return on investment. A summary of findings is as follows: After Steaz the organic tea saw sales double when a promotion was done on Facebook and Twitter where coupons were downloaded from the sites. There was a lot of discussion of how and why the organic teas were of any significance. A quarter of a million coupons were downloaded and almost three thousand tweets in an hour recorded. The owner of AJ Bombers, Joe Sorge utilised Twitter to foster relationships with three quarters of his customers in a Milwaukee Burger joint he owned. This caused a weekly growth of sales of up to 60% a year later without spending any money on traditional advertising. Best Buy organised its employees into a Twelp Force of 2200 people who responded to 13000 customers on social networks in three months. Over 29000 followers follow the @twelpforcenow twitter feed and the average number of questions per day is 100-125. This is an important value addition to the firm. BlendTec CEO Tom Dickson ran ads to sell blenders directly to customers that went viral on YouTube and this increased sales by over 700%. Burberry used social microsites to harness a million fans and this resulted in 10% increase in same store sales. On the Cadbury Facebook page, 22,000 fans of the discontinued Wispa Chocolate Bar petitioned for its return. When 40 million bars were released, they had sales of 4 bars per second and were sold out in 18 weeks. A new router launched by CISCO achieved its stated goals using only social media and culminated in savings of one hundred thousand dollars to the firm. When Coffee Groundz used twitter as a direct ordering channel there was a 20-30 percent bump in sales and market share. Comcast incepted a customer service on twitter known as Comcast Cares which earned the firm 2700 followers and turned former critics into fans through the quality of attention offered and the type of dialogue. Three million in revenue was earned by Dell in one year due to its Twitter Dell Outlet. Domino’s attributed its 29% growth in pre-tax profit to Foursquare which used promotions to persuade consumers to check into their outlets. A dentist in San Francisco known as Dr Vaksman increased his patients by 320 using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube. A breakdown of the relationship between social media and purchasing is illustrated in Figure 2 (Petersen, 2012). Figure 2: Social Commerce Study conducted April 2011 Other studies carried out with integrated use of structural equation modelling (SEM) techniques have been used to analyse how accepted social networking sites are in terms of the intentions of the users. It has been proposed that an adapted technology acceptance model for the acceptance of hedonic, pleasure-centred rather than functional data systems by the Millennial generation can be used to explain the user intentions in social networking sites (Rosen and Sherman, 2006). The model has however not been tested. However, an acknowledged use of social networking sites is to develop new relationships as well as sustaining prior ones. The formation and maintenance of social capital through Facebook was the subject of a study conducted by Ellison et al(2007) which surveyed 286 undergraduate students. Three types of social capital were studied: bridging, bonding and maintained social capital within a Facebook intensity construct. The outcome of the study showed a correlation between Facebook use and types of social capital. Ellison et al (2007) was the first to introduce the concept of Facebook intensity as a construct measurement and attempted to gauge whether this intensity is beneficial in other settings such as employee satisfaction or outcomes related to work in general. Different social networking sites are utilised by various users for varying reasons. User characteristics investigated by Hargittai (2008) found distinct differences in the type of user for different social network sites dependent upon gender, race, ethnicity and the educational background of their parents. Those with parents who have a higher education tended to subscribe more to Facebook while those with parents with a lower level of education were on MySpace. Hispanics tended to be MySpace users while Asians and Asian Americans tended to congregate more on Xanga and Friendster than their white colleagues. Social networking sites are useful as a tool for business intelligences. With the use of tools of analysis, companies can convert social networking sites like Facebook and twitter into veritable mines of information in market research. They can utilise this medium to track trends on how customers are interacting with their products and services as well as those of their competitors (Wilson, 2009). They are also a source of market research feedback on products and features which can lead to innovation (Bughin, 2009; Parameswaran & Whinston, 2007). These communities of customers are also a source of recommendation through tagging, reviewing or recognising products. On Facebook for example, they click the ‘like’ button while they follow relevant firms on Twitter. There are also studies that outline the advantages of social networking for organisations. Bennett et al (2010) lists them as improved communal knowledge, better efficiency and enhanced morale (Leidner et al., 2010) as well as a more honed strategic emphasis and more innovation. Many organisations utilise social networking in order to surmount the challenges produced by geography and facilitate innovation. An example of this is IBM which has an internal social network known as the Beehive which provides for event planning, photo sharing and discussion groups to facilitate employee relationships in the Diaspora of the organisation (Leader-Chivee & Cowan, 2008). Best Buy incepted a corporate network which links staff from different retail outlets, enabling them to make queries and disseminate information amongst themselves. This assisted them not only to bridge the gap produced by different geographical locations but also to decrease employee turnover by over 50% (Li and Bernoff, 2008). Social networking sites are also useful as a means of communication such as radio and TV, newspapers or telephone. However, feedback can be obtained much faster from customers and clients (Patel and Jasani, 2010). They complement rather than substitute more conventional methods of communication (Nielsen, 2009). Social networking can be used in advertising, marketing and branding. This can be done through harvesting of personal data on favourite music, and movies which are recorded in the user’s profile (O’Murchu et al, 2004). Furthermore businesses optimise the degree of customer service by actively listening and responding to their customers’ feedback. When brands fail to listen to this feedback, they could wreck serious consequences upon themselves. An example of this is Toyota which ignored customers’ complaints on the Prius brakes. This ended up costing them 34 billion dollars and its reputation for reliability (Ramsay, 2010). Methodology This research project will use the survey method and case studies to ascertain whether the effect of social media can be monetised. A survey can be defined as a systematic method of data collection from a specific group of people. It is inclined to have quantitative character and its objective is to amass information from a certain representative sample, give or take a margin of error. The aim of a survey is to collect information that is quantitative and it is usually done via questionnaire. Advantages It is possible to have several completed questions done in a short period of time. There are various expedient methods in which this can be done through phone, electronic means, fax or personally. It is possible to quantify and generalise the results to the general population. Having questions that are standardised and structured minimises any bias the interviewer might have. A large amount of data can be collected in a short space of time. Is less time consuming to analyse than qualitative data (The Health Communication Unit, 1999). Disadvantages An in-depth analysis of the respondent’s perspective is not possible as compared to using in-depth interviews. It can be very costly. It is necessary to have some knowledge of sampling, statistics and other specialised skills in order to examine and interpret data. Aim of the Survey This survey will be done in order to ascertain whether or not it is possible to monetise the effect of social media. Is it possible for users to convert their social media currency into profit? This study will assist individuals and businesses to understand whether it is possible to utilise social media as a means to increase their market share, and how to convert social media popularity into money. This issue affects every person and business operating in contemporary society especially as pertains to the Millennial generation. The issues to be explored are what methods are being currently utilised to monetise social media and how they are working or not working or what can be done to improve this concept. Resources The resources to be used in this study include online survey with various stakeholders as well as secondary data from Forbes and other studies which can be used to gauge how effectively social media can be monetised. Methods The case study method is ideal when looking for a holistic and in-depth analysis of data according to Feagin, Orum and Sjoberg (1991). Case studies are utilised in various types of investigation particularly of sociological nature. Whether the research is experimental or quasi-experimental, there are some details that remain hidden during data collection and analysis (Stake, 1995). A case study however, reveals these details due to the multiple points of view of various stakeholders. There are some specific types of case studies according to Yin (1993) known as descriptive, exploratory and explanatory. Stake (1995) adds three others namely intrinsic, instrumental and collective. The collective case studies outlines a situation where a group of cases is studied as is the case with this research. Case study research does not involve sampling as pointed out by Yin (1993), Stake (1995) as well as Feagin et al ( 1991). It is important to select cases that will maximise the knowledge to be gleaned in the available time. Measurement of Data The measurement of data in order to determine how effective social media is, is done in various ways. These include: Examination of referring traffic- this can be done using Google Analytics. Review of content for quality and relevance- this assessment can be done by monitoring unique page views, time on page and total pages viewed. When the number of unique page views rises this indicates growth, while spending more time on the page indicates interest in the content and increased total page views means the visitor wanted more information. This can be done with Google Analytics. Examination of Share of Voice- this is the number of conversations had about the user or their organisation vis a vis competitors or the general market. The value of online customer as well as prospect interaction is linked to share of voice metric. It is important to segment the brand mentions by social channel in order to get a more accurate reading. In order to calculate SOV the number of conversations that mention the organisation brand as compared to other brands in the market is compared. Share of Voice = Mentions/ (Total Mentions for competitive companies/brands) The total size of the community and engagement is tracked. This is done using a social CRM tool such as Sprout Special which aggregates activity into a user friendly dashboard. Figure 3: Sprout Special Dashboard. Measurement of sentiment which cannot really be quantified but can be tracked manually. This means examining mentions and tagging them as positive, negative or neutral and see which ones experience growth. This is also referred to as opinion mining (Miller, 2012). Data Analysis According to WOMMA, the average cost incurred in staffing and executing a social media endeavour comes to 210,600 dollars annually. The breakdown is outlined in figure 4 below: Figure 4: WOMMA study on what it costs to have an effective social media effort. Source: Petersen, 2011 Best Buy They found out that their best customers were users of Facebook and by simply asking their consumers to check them out on the site whether or not they had an offer or not, increased their likes from 27,000 to 163,000. There was a nine-day rise of the Best Buy community on Facebook from 163,000 to 900000. WOMMA has estimated that the value of Facebook fan is 72 dollars and Best Buy has over three million. Cars.com This site gives consumers information about cars taken from the recommendations of other consumers. An analysis of the influence of other consumers’ recommendations a comparison was done between pages that featured ratings and reviews as opposed to those that didn’t. The pages with ratings and reviews has a +16% conversion increase, +100% greater than before traffic to dealers’ locations and +45% rise in consumers looking for financial options. Derrynoid Centre This a conference and training centre in Northern Ireland which has 40 suites. It utilised Groupon to disseminate a 60% discount offer on a particular day. The results were 426 reservations stemming from the offer with 88% hotel stay reservations fulfilled and an increase of 26% in bar and restaurant sustained increase due to the offer. Eventbrite This site makes money through sharing. When a user shares an event through social media, actual dollars are generated. One share on Facebook has been shown to generate $2.52, Twitter, $0.43 and LinkedIn, $ 0.90. the average number of page views per month for Eventbrite in 2010 was 17 million. Moviefone They linked to Login with Facebook, as well as other features like Events API, Activity Feed, Like Button and Graph API which facilitates sharing socially and engagement. The Moviefone site enabled users to connect with their Facebook friends which facilitated more sharing. This increased proliferation of unique content and traffic generation. They showed a three fold increase in site traffic, 40,000-250000 rise in referrals monthly and 40% click through rate. The average click back rate for users on the Moviefone site multiplied by seven. Office Depot They incorporated the reviews left by consumers for specific products on their website and began a paid search with user generated key words. This resulted in an increase of 78.5% in click through rate and 23.8% conversion increase plus 196.6% rise in revenue and 183.3% new buyer bump. Premiere Beauty They used Groupon to offer a discount of 60% and saw five hundred new consumers come in as well as a shift in source of customers from Facebook and Twitter of 85% since they began to use these social media sites to post promotional offers. Shoe Dazzle They used their Facebook pages, and its attendant apps to harvest consumers to share their shopping experience at ShoeDazzle with others. The outcome was 100000 likes on Facebook and six fold increase in Facebook market share. These Facebook users were more likely to have brand loyalty and spend more than non-facebook users. Sporting News They added a plugin on their Facebook page that allowed for ‘recommendations’ which facilitated users to share articles on Sporting News. This resulted in a doubling of traffic to the site within three months and a rise in Facebook referral status from 16th to top three in site traffic. They also noted a 30% bump in subscriptions. Below in Figure 5 is an illustration of the monetising ability of Facebook vis a vis, users. Figure 5: Value of Facebook Fans. Source: Petersen, 2011 Results and Discussion Rate of investment is related to social media costs in this way according to the figures above. If McDonald’s has an expenditure of 210600 dollars annually on social media, and the value of a Facebook Fan is 159.79 dollars more than a non-Facebook user, then McDonald’s would require 1,314 Facebook users to cater for its expenditure. Costs of Social Media But what are the real costs of social media? And what are the benefits? Factors to Consider Personnel costs: an organisation or individual hoping to make a social media impact may be obliged to employee a full or part-time consultant to monitor their social media feeds and conduct analyses on what is most effective and what isn’t. these personnel will need resources in terms of salary, cost of internet, etc. External Fees If updating on social media is outsourced, the billing accrued will impact on the bottom line. Advertising It may not be enough simply to set up an account and assume that followers will follow. It may become necessary to conduct some advertising and this has attendant costs. Other While basic usage is free on most social media sites, there are auxiliary apps that help in tracking, monitoring or updating that may come at a cost. This must be taken into account. Benefits of Social Media Figure 6: Percentage benefit of social media according to eMarketers. Limitations and Future Research This research was limited by the availability of resources and the dearth of verifiable data that can ascertain how well the use of social media can be monetised for the average business user. Future Research could focus on developing such instruments that come up with quantifiable, calculable ways to measure how effective it is to convert a social media presence into money. Conclusions and Recommendations The objective of this research was to ascertain whether or not it is possible for social media to make money for users. It came about as a result of the released Forbes List that ranked celebrities socially as part of their Celebrity 100 list. The question then became, is it possible to convert that social currency into actual currency. The number one on the list, Jennifer Lopez, ranks 19 in the social ranking, and Oprah at two ranks 18. however, number 3, 4 and 5 that is Justin Bieber, Rihanna and Lady Gaga rank 3,2 and 1 on the social rankings (Celebrity 100, 2012). On the other hand are millions of struggling artistes, writers and organisations attempting to turn social media presence into cash. The case studies I have researched indicate that it is possible to cash in on the social media phenomenon with the correct marketing techniques, responding to customer feedback and being smart at going for one’s target market. It is also necessary to offer additional benefits to the user to keep their attention and foster loyalty to the brand as ShopDazzle did. Good customer reviews are essential to the reputation of the brand and proliferation of the product, it is therefore important to keep the customer happy. The conclusion therefore is that it is possible to convert social media into cash but it is necessary to develop instruments which can quantify this for business. Recommendations Additional research needs to be carried out in order to develop instruments that measure the convertibility of social media into cash. Google Analytics is helpful in tracking, but in order to know what one did that worked, and what didn’t, a more specific tool needs to be developed. Future research could concentrate more on discussing with customers and obtaining their point of view on what organisations and individuals do right and do wrong. References Bennett, J., Owers, M., Pitt, M., & Tucker, M. (2010). Workplace impact of social networking. Property Management, 28(3), 138 - 148. Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2008). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230. doi: Article. Bughin, J. (2009). 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