Ever wondered how to qualitatively measure your brand performance? Strategic companies use both, integrated and standalone social media platforms, to track and improve brand performance.
For example, ‘Dewmocracy’, a forum created and maintained by Mountain Dew’s fans, allows customers to vote for their favorite flavors, products and offer opinions on new flavors, packaging designs and advertising campaigns, from several ideas floated by the company. Based on inputs collected from this forum, the company introduced three new flavors to the market.
In a previous article, I discussed effective tools used by Starbucks. The site mystarbucksidea.com is yet another example of a company successfully adopting social CRM tools to connect with customers and measure brand performance.
Brand Monitoring
Building a Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI), using variable social media metrics and a real-time resource to analyze progress, is a key component of online brand monitoring. To illustrate the importance of CSI, Dell uses Twitter feeds or @DellOutlet to connect with customers before and during new product launches, to gauge customer reactions and preferences in new or upgraded Dell products. A dedicated team of forty-plus Dell employees work on analyzing customer data collected through online platforms. It is estimated that the company has generated around $6.5 million in revenue using Twitter[1] alone.
Brand Promotion
Social CRM tools are helpful in engaging customers and evaluating their behavior to facilitate brand promotions, which helps companies enact brand promotion strategies and drive revenue growth.
According to a study carried out by Wetpaint in association with the Altimeter Group[2], companies which have actively used social CRM tools in developing social media metrics, have gained around 18% increase in revenues. Elements such as direct and real-time customer engagement, targeted and innovative product lines and operational excellence are some key metrics in improving brand promotion initiatives.
For example, Amazon, primarily an online retailer with an outstanding reputation among online buyers, needs no additional boosts in promoting its brand. Yet, the company uses Facebook to increase ROI and develop fresh e-commerce solutions, which appeal to a larger percentage of global online customers.
As customers become savvier and more selective in their buying preferences and spending behavior, they’re also growing as ‘primary’ brand builders through their online personae and involvement. Using social CRM tools with refined brand metrics to measure effectiveness and impact on revenues, is the way forward for businesses in the present-day environment.
Sources:
- Dell Rides Twitter to $6.5 million in Sales, 8 December 2009
- New Study Indicates Social Media Pays, Correlation between Brands SM Efforts & Financial performance, 20 July 2009
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