It’s hard to explain the value of social media because it’s good for so many things.

Different departments of an organisation can use social media for different purposes, and apply different measures. Here’s a partial list. Have we missed anything?

Marketing

• Increase web traffic
  • in order to increase ad revenue
  • in order to increase sales
  • in order to increase paid membership
  • in order to increase site membership and engagemen
• Increase word of mouth marketing
  • in order to cut marketing spend
  • in order to create authentic, grassroots community -> co-create products, services

• Grow database
  • in order to build long term customers

Sales

• Increasing sales through all channels
• Leveraging salespeoples’ personal brands

HR

• Recruitment
• Employer brand positioning
• Revealing internal culture for recruitment
• Education – explaining company’s role
• Headhunting through social network sites
• Training
• Increasing engagement
• Culture change
  • Opening up communications channels/dialogue
  • Breaking down silos

PR

• Telling your side of the story
• Crisis management
• Blogger relations
• Media relations

Customer Service

• Reducing customer support costs
• Increasing customer service quality

Market Research

• Generating consumer insights -> innovations
• Brand sentiment monitoring

Events

• Get more attendance
• Make event more interactive

Branding

• Humanise the brand (thanks to Mr K for the suggestion)

Operations

• Virtual teams/collaboration

What’s missing?

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Well it’s not quite an invasion, but there are an awful lot of very smart people hitting New Zealand in the next few months.

Feb 19: The Great Word of Mouth Experiment – Jaffe, Sernovitz

It starts in just 18 days with the Great Word of Mouth Experiment . Details here , but you won’t find registration details. This is an invitation-only event to map the marketing social networks of New Zealand (and, no doubt, further afield).

Speakers for the event are Joseph Jaffe , author of Join the Conversation , and Andy Sernovitz , author of Word of Mouth Marketing .

March 11-12: 2nd Digital Media Summit – Hopkins, Horne and more

In March there’s the 2nd Digital Media Summit , chaired by Australia’s top Social Media bloke Lee Hopkins , and featuring MySpace’s Rebekah Horne. Not to be outdone by the Aussies, there are also some pretty good kiwi speakers and panelists, including Jake Pearce , Helen Baxter and Ben Young .

The conference also features an unconference session, where the passive audience becomes an active contributor to the conversation.

April 15-16 Marketing Now – Brogan, Scott and more

The excitement doesn’t stop, it just gets better. On April 15th and 16th Marketing Now hits Wellington, featuring social media superstar Chris Brogan and David Meerman Scott , author of the The New Rules of Marketing and PR .

This conference has been organised by Siobhan Bulfin , an extraordinary person we met on our recent Wellington trip. She’s been learning social media for a year and already she’s put this conference together. Great skills!

There’s a Twitter-only special for Marketing Now , which is a significant discount , but available only if you’re on Twitter.

Interested?

Sign up for Twitter , and follow me , Marie or Siobhan (all or any of us). And, using an @ reply, or a direct message, ask us about the Twitter-only special.

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