Why Your Business Can’t Go Without Social Media

• Gary Vaynerchuk did a study and found:
  • $15,000 in direct mail = 200 new customers
  • $7,500 for a billboard = 300 new customers
  • 0$ for Twitter = 1,800 New Customers!
• Wetpaint/Altimiter found companies that widely engage in Social Media surpass their peers in both revenue$ and profit$.
• Over the last quarter, sales for companies that used Social Media grew over 18% while those companies with no social media were at -6%
• The computer company Lenovo reported a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to a community website.
• Burger King made a Facebook application:
  • Cost $50,000
  • Estimated Return > $400,000 in press/media value
  • Total = 32 Million free media impressions
  • That’s like reaching the combined populations of 19 states.
• BlendTec quintuples sales with “Will You Blend It?” YouTube Videos!
• Dell has sold over 3,000,000 computers on Twitter alone.
• 25% of Ford’s marketing budget is spent on Digital/Social Media, they are the only automaker that didn’t take a government loan.
• 3 out of 4 Americans use social technology – Forrester Research, The Growth of Social Technology Adoption, 2008
• 2/3 of the global internet population visit social networks – Nielson, Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009
• Visiting social sites is now the fourth most popular online activity, ahead of personal email – Nielson, Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009
• Naked Pizza set a one day sales record using Social Media:
  • 68% of sales from Twitter
  • 85% of new customers from Twitter

• “Technology is shifting the power away from the editors, the publishers, the establishment, the media elite. Now it’s the people that are in control.” – Rupert Murdoch, Global Media Entrepreneur

• Intuit introduced “Live Community” into their products 2 years ago and their sales has increased over 30% each year.
• Ebay found participants in online communities spend 54% more $
  • Customer support costs:
    • $12 via contact center VS.
    • .25¢ via self service
• “Why are we trying to measure Social Media a like traditional channel anyway? Social Media touches every facet of business and is more an extension of good business ethics” Erik Qualman
• “You can buy attention anymore, having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in Social Media…the old media paridigm was pay to play. Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be will to Play to Play.” – Alex Bogusky, Co-Chairman, CP&B
• Sometimes I’m asked the ROI of Social Media, I answer “What’s the ROI of your cell phone?”
• There are on average about 100,000,000 YouTube video’s viewed per day
• The growth rate of Twitter users increased 1,382% from January to February 2009
• There is an average of 3,000,000 tweets per day on Twitter
• People spend a combined total of 5,000,000,000 minutes on Facebook each day
• People share around 1,000,000,000 pieces of content each week on Facebook
• 3 million online donors contributed $6,500,000 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign fund through his social networking sites
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3rd most populated in the world
• YouTube is now the 2nd most popular online search engine, behind Google
• Social media is not just another marketing channel. It is so much more: Public Relations, Customer Service, Loyalty Building, Collaboration, Networking, Thought Leadership and Customer Acquisition.
• Over 50% of the world is under 30 yrs old and 96% of them have joined a social network.
• Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the US.
• Social Media has overtaken pornography as the number 1 activity on the web.
• Years to reach 50 million viewers
  • Radio 38 years
  • TV 13 years
  • Internet 4 years
  • iPod 3 yrs
  • Facebook addes 200 MILLION users in less than one year.
• iPod applications hits 1 billion in 9 months.
• “We don’t have a choice on whether we do social media, the question is how well do we do it?” Eric Qualman
• US Dept of Education study revealed that online students outperformed those receiving face-to-face instruction.
• 80% of companies us social media to hire.
• The fastest growing segmant on Facebook is 55 – 65 yr old females.
• Ashton Kutcher has more followers on Twitter than the whole population of Sweden, Israel, Switzerland, Ireland, Norway, Panama
• 50% of mobile internet traffic is for Facebook.
  • Imagine what this means for bad customer experiences!
• Some universities have stopped giving out email addresses and are now giving out: ereaders, iPads and tablets.
• Every 4 minutes 100 plus hours of video is being uploaded to YouTube.
• There are over 200,000,000 blogs.
• 78% of consumers trust peer recomendations, only 14% trust advertisements
  • Ask yourself: How is my business staying in front of my customer EVERY DAY?!
• Only 18% of traditional tv campaigns generate a positive ROI
  • 90% of people skip ads on Tivo/DVR
• eBooks outsold paper books on Christmas of last year
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.
• 60 millions status updates happen just on Facebook alone…we no longer search for the news, it finds us.
• We no longer search for products and services, they will find us through social media.
• The ROI of Social Media is that your business will still exist in 5 years IF you use it and use it right!

The Social Media tidal wave is here, are you swimming with the current?!