(Guest post by Dorine Sinigaglia)

When talking to clients about social media and its effects on increasing sales of their products and increasing traffic to their site, the most asked, common question is: “That’s great – but what will social media do for us? Show me the money!” – and their point is rightfully valid. For those who still don’t quite understand the long-term effects that social media has on their company, it is rather difficult for them to understand the true purpose for setting aside a budget directly for social media, as they don’t see the monetary effects and gains that social media has on their organization. Even for those few who do understand the purpose for utilizing social media tools,  tracking monetary gains and effectiveness of social media it is still not an easy concept to grasp.

If you found yourself questioning the immediate monetary effects social media efforts have on your company’s growth after reading the above and you too exclaimed in your head “Show me the money!” – I highly suggest you check out Olivier Blanchard’s clever and entertaining presentation on the Basics of Social Media ROI. In short, Blanchard notes an important point to remember about social media: “Social Media is not free: it takes people, it takes technology and it takes time – all of which are limited resources.” Read on.

We already know that social media takes people (often a whole department) to manage a successful community. We also know there are a number of resources available for ways to reach out to a community using social media tools – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – the list goes on and on. And then there’s the major factor of time. Most people think and practice the popular phrase “time is money.” Yes, time is definitely money, but it is important to remember that  most social media campaigns take some time to develop and spread virally. Managers in corporations often feel the need to “pass” on social media campaigns and jump the gun too soon because they don’t see immediate gains or increase in product sales. They think that the campaigns must obviously not be working. This way of thinking goes against every aspect of social media marketing. Embarrassingly enough – 84% of respondents in a survey taken said that they don’t currently measure the ROI of their social media programs (survey taken in August 2009 – noted in a Mashable article). How can one be so certain that social media doesn’t bring in a return on investment if they don’t even measure it?

As Blanchard notes in his presentation, there are many types of non-financial impacts that when glancing from a distance, one can’t see the immediate effects of in terms of money. Types of non-financial impacts include website visitors, impressions and blog comments, customer complaints, positive press & negative press, Facebook friends and Twitter followers, social mention and retweets, positive WOM and negative WOM, employment applications and coupons distributed. All of these impacts have a direct impact on the financial gains of the company – but they do take time to occur and is not something that can be rushed.

According to Christina Warren in her post HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI, “finding trends and tracking them back to their point of origin is the key to measuring ROI.” It is important to know where you started before you know where you are headed in social media. One cannot state that social media tools aren’t “working” for their company if they didn’t even know whether they had a community before they started. It is important to make clearly defined goals and then track progress along the way. There are numerous helpful tools used to track quantitative results and analytics including Google Analytics, PostRank Analytics and eWebAnalytics (check out more ways to track website traffic here). It is not enough to measure solely quantitative results, as qualitative results are also important measurements of tracking success of social media efforts. Before tracking these, it is crucial to determine what it is you want to measure – is it conversations about your products? If relationships were built with your customers? If customers are happy with your product or are they providing complaints? All of this is important to track but one must first understand their organization’s social media objectives in order to know what results should be expected.

According to Aaron Uhrmacher from Mashable,”statistic-based metrics seems to be the primary way communicators feel they can secure approval and budget for these programs from their management teams” in his post How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business. Measuring solely statistics can be problematic,  as social media ROI is based on several factors that lead to an organization’s sales’ bottom line (as mentioned above). Aside from the numerous social networking sites available, there are also insights that come from an organization’s company blog, their participation in other blogging sites, their PR in the blogosphere and any other viral way of virtually mentioning the company’s brand — and all of these  come into play when measuring the effectiveness of social media. This is why it is almost dangerous to assume that immediate returns will show up from your investment in social media.

Measuring ROI is key to assessing the true impact your social media efforts have on your business and your gross margin. However, measuring it is one thing – knowing what to do with those results in another story. Look for specific trends and user behaviors before and after posting status updates, blog posts and promoting discounts and coupons for the holiday season. Every move counts and its success (or lack thereof) can be tracked with numerous sites and analytical devices. Remember the time factor also. Don’t assume your social media efforts are worthless if you’ve only spent 2 weeks promoting a new product. Large-scale marketing campaigns in social media can take up to 6 months for them to come into full-effect and start driving profit to the company’s bottom line. So take a look at your current community and track what has been done and make attainable goals of what needs to get done in order to grow. Continue to engage with your community, track progress along the way and have patience – as this process will take some time – but is definitely worth the wait.

Dorine Sinigaglia is the Account & Content Manager at Blonde 2.0.

(Flickr image courtesy of Arisey)

If we look back in history , we will find that much before Facebook, MySpace and YouTube, there was ICQ. For anyone who doesn’t know, ICQ was created in 1996 and is now wholly owned by AOL. ICQ was THE pioneer of social media and real time updates. It introduced us to instant messaging and a revolutionary new way to communicate with people instantly in real time. ICQ could have been Facebook or Twitter a long time ago. It’s taken ICQ quite a long time to get back to its status as a social pioneer but now with it’s new client, ICQ is getting back to what it was about all the way from the beginning – a place to interact with your friends everywhere. Everybody Everywhere is after all ICQ’s slogan and being an ICQ veteran myself, I am very excited to announce the launch of the new ICQ 7.

ICQ 7 is a client that brings together all your social interactions from across the Web. Instead of having to open a few different pages and applications to get my friends’ status updates on Facebook, to read tweets of my favorite people and to follow what’s happening on other sites as well such as Youtube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious.  ICQ 7 allows me to use one personal communication tool to integrate all my online social activities.  I am able to syndicate my updates to all of my social networks with a single click and get status updates & tweets from all my friends in my networks in one single platform.

ICQ 7 enables real-time updates from content sharing sites and top social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Digg and Delicious and will soon announce the integration of local social networks. Found side by side with the ICQ Contact List, users can find a separate tab of real time feeds and updates from their friends from their various social networks. Users will no longer need to open up a new browser and log in to separate networks that they’re members of each time they want to comment on their friend’s updates. From now on, consider ICQ to be your social networks’ one-stop-shop no longer will I need to search for content on different platforms – the content finds me.  ICQ 7’s interface is also improved with software that is fully compatible with all versions of Microsoft Windows, including Windows 7.

My Status: Status updates I make on ICQ can be automatically posted in my other supported networks as well.  I can also easily share pictures and links.

Feeds from Friends: Updates made by user’s friends on leading social networks and content sharing sites appear in real time in the “Feeds from Friends” tab on the contact list.  The user can comment on these updates directly from his/her ICQ and the comment will appear also in the relevant social network/site.  ICQ users can see updates from all their friends in the various social networks – not just from friends that have ICQ.

My Box: The “My Box” tab on the ICQ Contact List is the place where ICQ users get all notifications of their personal online activity – who commented on my status and in which site, who liked the photos I uploaded, etc.

New User Profile: ICQ 7 presents a more enhanced user profile – both within the client and on the Website.  The user profile is the place where users can display who they are by sharing pictures and personal updates on their page.  The new user profile is now offered in color schemes that are fully customizable to suit the user’s mood. Additionally, the new user profile allows ICQ users to view their friends’ contact lists and add new people to their own contact list, thereby increasing their circle of friends.

Picture-Sharing Tool: A new, quick and fun application for sharing pictures with friends:

Faster, Lighter: ICQ 7 performance has been vastly improved with installation time reduced by nearly 50% and requested space for installation reduced approximately by 30%.

ICQ 7 offers a Social Messaging client that enables quick and easy communication friends from across networks, ability to view real-time updates from: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg and Delicious. ICQ’s Managing Director, Eliav Moshe, says:

“ICQ 7 brings Social Messaging into play, integrating users’ online social world with their personal communication tool.  The new version answers users’ needs for a quick and easy communication tool that also helps you be up to date with everything that’s going on in multiple social networks and content sharing sites.  With a loyal community of over 42 million users worldwide, we are working on the upcoming integration of local social networks into ICQ 7 as well.”

It is only fitting that the company that was the pioneer of the Web 2.0 era has now integrated this Web 2.0 world into one manageable space in the best possible manner.  Try it out for yourself and let me know what you think. In my opinion it offers the best solution we have today for one platform which integrates all my social interactions into one convenient platform.

Become an ICQ fan on Facebook

Check out their Twitter

(Disclosure: Blonde 2.0 is ICQ’s social media firm)

Starbucks has over 705,000 followers on twitter and over 5,428,000 fans on Facebook. I guess you could say that they’re doing something right on the Web. What is it about Starbucks’s social media strategy that makes it so successful?

Let’s analyze Starbucks social behavior across the Web:

1) Starbucks on twitter – Starbucks engages with customers on twitter, answer questions, retweets what people are saying about the brand and creates an open communication channel to speak with the public.

2) Starbucks on Facebook – Starbucks uploads content to their Facebook page such as: Videos, blog posts, photos. The company also invites people to events. Fans have a place to open discussions and comment as many of them do.

3) Starbucks on YouTube -Over 4800 people subscribe to Starbucks YouTube Channel. They upload videos of commercials as well as informational videos explaning the origins of the different coffee blends and some of their charity work videos. They also upload videos showing their history thus enabling people to relate more to the brand. This video showing the beginnings of Starbucks received over 11, 800 views:

Starbucks is also allowing people to embed its videos anywhere they like on the Web. Many companies don’t allow this because they’re afraid that their videos might be places on sites that they don’t want to be associated with. However, from Starbucks’ experience as well as the experience of other brands (such as Dell), this strategy has proven to only increase the positive exposure of brands that allow embedding and not the opposite.

4) My Starbucks Idea – Starbucks’ own version of a social network where customers are asked to share their ideas on anything related to Starbucks. The site gives users the ability to see what others are suggesting, vote on ideas and check out the results. This site is a brilliant and important aspect of Starbucks social media strategy. Users who are part of this network feel that they have some role in the decision making process of the company and it makes them feel a part of it.

5) Starbucks Blog entitled “Ideas in Action” – This blog is written by various Starbucks employees and talks about what Starbucks is doing with the ideas given by users on the My Starbucks Idea site. The blog keeps customers in the loop and in the know regarding what’s happening with their ideas and increases their sense of loyalty to the brand.

Overall Starbucks’s social media strategy integrates many different elements into the mix and combined together, these elements create a social media plan that works beautifully to create millions of fans for the brand and keep them involved in the brand’s doings. The brand has created a digital dialogue with its customers, enabling people to give their feedback and receive a response back from Starbucks addressing their concerns/comments. Starbucks is showing its customers and potential customers – “hey, we care about what YOU have to say.”

I am certain that if each one of these elements was done alone then the strategy would not have been as successful and complete as it is when done like this in integration with the rest of the elements on board. Many brands can learn a great deal from the way that Starbucks conquered the social web. It is really all a matter of priorities. Starbucks put communicating with their customers and potential customers as a top priority. Do you?