If you want corporate executives to understand the value of social networks, you need to move discussions from ROI to COI.
Centers of influence, or COI’s, are people in the community that generate sales for your business through referrals. Sometimes they’re customers. Some are members of your target market who influence their peers. Others operate complimentary businesses and share their customers. They are well connected. They have ability to generate large volumes of business for your company by referral — and they’re online.
When you describe social networks, define them using the referral opportunity they represent:
Facebook: the largest referral network of consumers in the world. Boasting more than 500 million worldwide users and 140 million users in the US, Facebook is the best place for consumers to share brand-related experiences with their friends and family. The average Facebook user has 130 friends and shares 90 pieces of original content each month.
Twitter: the loudest referral network in the world. Twitter has more than 150 million worldwide users and 28 million users in the US. What Twitter lacks in size, it makes up for in volume. It’s the largest public form for consumers and it’s the first place that it’s users go to praise or complain about brands. For many companies, Twitter plays the largest role in proactive customer service because Twitter search makes it easy for companies to find and respond to all brand-related conversations on the site.
LinkedIn: the largest B-to-B referral network in the world. LinkedIn has more than 80 million worldwide users with about half of its users outside the US. LinkedIn attracts and connects business professionals, business owners, sales people and corporate decision makers — making it one of the best resources for fostering COI relationships.
The goal of an effective social media program is to attract, gather and nurture COI and customer relationships that will generate ongoing referrals, increased awareness and future sales. Exchanging referrals give us pleasure and makes us feel more connected to the world around us. Referrals are valued by social network users as a credible alternative to time-consuming research. Referrals are valued by business owners because they result in more sales over the long haul and a shorter sales cycle.
Social networks provide the most affordable and powerful resources for identifying COIs, monitoring the perception of your brand, and placing your brand among the ‘considered set’ when prospects are ready to buy. Social networks are good marketing tools — and they are good business.
