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Online analytics firm Omniture worked extensively with National Geographic to craft a social media marketing campaign, aiming to increase subscription sales through the magazine’s website and immense content database. Their efforts revealed some interesting results, particularly about social media’s value when combined with other marketing methods.

The first was a distinct belief in social media, particularly amongst experienced word-of-mouth marketers and dedicated online advertisers. While display advertising and paid search placements saw a distinct drop in spending throughout 2009, social media marketing was treated to greater budgets and a significantly larger employee focus than ever before.

It also revealed a slight divide between social media usage in business-to-business and business-to-consumer fields. On average, B2B companies invest more heavily in social media marketing efforts, despite their reputation for limited marketing experimentation and slow adoption of new tactics.

In most cases, social media marketing efforts are paired with pay-per-click marketing and organic search. Research has suggested that this can heighten the effects of social media and organic search marketing, as the two forms of traffic generation tend to have positive benefits for the other. Direct mail and radio advertising were least likely to be used alongside social media campaigns.

How are marketers adapting to qualitative measurement and dynamic feedback?

What’s historically separated social media from other forms of marketing – both in measurement and in its perceived effectiveness – is the way in which it can be measured. While paid search and display advertisements can quickly be assigned a cost-per-click or cost-per-thousand income figure, creating such firm statistics for social media visitors can be difficult.

This has lead thousands of businesses away from social media marketing efforts, particularly those with low budgets and a limited capacity for high-risk advertising decisions. It’s also lead to a slight backlash amongst performance marketers, who believe that a lack of measurability is indicative of limited effectiveness and low direct marketing potential.

Of course, social media requires an adjustment in the way marketing campaigns are monitored and measured.

Marketers have stressed the importance of qualitative value – social media’s power as a form of long-term branding and complementary aspect of other marketing campaigns. Social media efforts can be beneficial for SEO campaigns, for example, as well as email marketing efforts.

In National Geographic’s case, the value of social media was demonstrated in the amount of time visitors spent on their website, alongside the type of content which was most frequently viewed. Social media visitors spent relatively more time viewing current content and news than others, giving National Geographic an idea of how to appeal to social media audiences more effectively.

Both large and small businesses are aware of social media’s power for confrontation and negative feedback, though large businesses tend to be more involved in active social media monitoring processes. Seventy-five percent of businesses polled by analysis company Omniture monitored social media commentary, though only thirty-five percent of businesses publicly respond to negative feedback and customer complaints.

The majority of polled companies, both large and small, lack a dedicated social media feedback policy, instead preferring to deal with public feedback on a case-by-case basis. Research has found that large companies are more invested in process-driven social media responses, a finding that’s unsurprising given their greater size and limited flexibility in dealing with public events.

For many businesses, the potential for a social media situation to spiral out of control prevents formal policies from being created. Many large businesses believe that a limited investment in social media provides greater benefits than a dedicated social media marketing effort, due to the potential liability from a poor social media response.

Social media branding, sales, and research in action

National Geographic’s social media marketing efforts lead to an unsurprising and quite familiar conclusion: social media is a huge driver of visitors and online traffic. After just one year, social media marketing tactics had directly contributed to 8.4% of National Geographic’s total traffic figures – a 200% increase from similar figures before the campaign commenced in June 2008.

Other retailers have reported similar results from their social media marketing efforts. Online shirt retailer Threadless reported over 73,000 visits to their website during a 24-hour promotion using Twitter and Facebook as marketing outlets. Threadless recorded high conversion rates throughout the promotion, with one in twenty-five Twitter visitors purchasing a t-shirt.

Of course, the true value in Threadless’ marketing campaign goes beyond the initial purchases and social media coverage. The online retailer retains a community focus on their website, encouraging users to submit their own shirt designs and take part in competitions. With over two-thousand new customers and a huge selection of new members, Threadless’ social media efforts will likely lead to thousands of future sales and boosted member retention rates.

How engaged, worthwhile, and lucrative are social media visitors?

National Geographic found that an increased social media effort reduced traffic from pay-per-click advertisements and other paid advertising outlets. The publisher had previously drawn in visitors through search advertising and display banners – two forms of advertising which saw reduced demand with the large increase in social media attention throughout 2009.

However, the increase in social media traffic also came with a change in user engagement and browsing patterns. Social media visitors were noticeably less engaged while viewing the National Geographic website, viewing an average of just 4.2 pages per visit – a figure far below the 10 page average for pay-per-click advertising visitors and 13.6 for email subscribers.

Marketers noticed another interesting pattern when they observed social referrers; news and bookmarking websites accounted for as little as one page view per user, while social sharing websites were responsible for an average of eight page views per user. News and bookmarking visitors were also less likely to view advertisements, instead opting for photo and video content.

It’s this phenomenon – known to some as the ‘social media bubble’ – that’s pushed many marketers away from pursuing social media as a realistic revenue option. National Geographic found that sales were equally weak amongst social visitors, with pay-per-click advertisement visitors over 100 times more likely to purchase a subscription than social media website visitors.

But it’s important to separate the limited revenue generated by social media visitors from their value. National Geographic again experimented with social media promotions, discovering that the ‘snowball’ effect of social media growth can generate sales quite effectively. A Facebook promotion failed to find customers on social media channels, yet was cross-posted on a community forum and found thousands of customers within days.

This study shows a strange quality in social media. Despite being less engaged and significantly less likely to purchase directly from sales-driven websites than other users, social media users often contribute to exponential marketing exposure. Threadless and National Geographic experienced the ‘snowball’ effect first-hand, seeing their coupon code and t-shirt promotion spread rapidly across the internet.

Beyond income, why should social media be monitored and engaged?

When compared with Threadless’ successful social media promotion, National Geographic’s social media efforts appear to be unprofitable. However, the two marketing efforts shared little in common other than a platform, differing quite extensively in their duration and audience focus. Threadless maintained a focus on connecting with their current audience, marketing to Twitter followers rather than anonymous social news readers.

It’s this reason – connection – that requires a social media focus. Threadless saw success from their social media campaign as a result of their previously established connection with users. Similarly to National Geographic, their promotion ended up reaching a far wider audience than it had expected to, yielding a financial bonus for both companies and contributing to the study’s immeasurability.

The increased adoption of social media reflects a reality of new marketing: marketers are no longer talking about customers, but communicating directly with them. Social media provides a new link into how customers and prospective customers are responding to business decisions, giving online companies the ability to quickly generate, adapt to, and incorporate feedback into new products and services.

This mix in value makes social media a difficult proposition for many risk averse businesses, yet one that’s measurably beneficial for others. The financial cost of a social media presence remains low, giving businesses with adequate tracking and measurement infrastructure an inexpensive and potentially effective method of driving traffic, increasing online exposure, and communicating with their customers.

Social media tidbits, facts, and figures:

• Facebook claims to have over 400 million active users. Approximately 70 percent live outside of the United States, and over 100 million access Facebook using a mobile phone.
• Almost all social media case studies have highlighted social bookmarking and news websites as major traffic sources, despite their limited potential for short-term income.
• Social bookmarking website Digg.com was visited by over 43 million unique users in August 2009, making it the most popular social bookmarking property on the internet.
• Business-to-business social network LinkedIn has over 50 million members, and has been expanding its audience rapidly over the past two years.
• While less valuable on a per-user basis than pay-per-click advertising and organic search, social media visitors are capable of generating ‘viral’ traffic to a website.