How much is a new fan or Facebook share worth for your brand?

Let's face it—social media, like any other type of marketing, comes down to results. Everyday people are asking about better ways to properly assess the value of social media.  I'll be honest; it's hard to track direct and immediate sales, because social media is more of a discovery tool that creates a need to buy when the time is right, unlike the immediacy of searching for something on Google in which you already have a need in mind before you begin the search. However, now there is a way you can directly correlate the commercial value of metrics that were once trivial at best.

First things first, let's assess the value of a new fan for your Facebook community. According to a recent report, A Facebook friend is worth about $174—a 28% increase over last year and we expect this worth to increase exponentially. The research conducted by Syncapse weighted factors such as brand affinity, loyalty, propensity to recommend, and product spending to determine this real world value. It comes as no surprise that somebody allowing a brand into their personal space on Facebook will be more likely to recommend a product to friends—the #1 most trusted form of advertisement according to Forrester Research. Wouldn’t you consider a brand suggested by a friend over one advertised in a magazine? Now, if you can imagine, you have a fan base worth even more—they are called mavens, the type of people who love to share with friends more so than the average fan. You might notice them engaging with you more than others and constantly retweeting you on Twitter. Now, let's talk about the value of activating these users to share and how you can do it. 

As I mentioned before, the mavens have much more value than the typical Facebook fan and obviously much more so than the non-fans. Here at brandbuddee, we help mavens connect and cultivate relationships with other mavens, expanding their reach. We know the value is in activating your fan base to create the highest amount of mutual value between your brand and its fans. After activating this special segment of your fan base, you'll find a tremendous amount of commercial value in them.

A recent study by Eventbrite measured the amount of ticket sales generated from social media users sharing an event with friends, demonstrating the increasing importance of how recommendations in online and social communities influence purchase decisions. They found that every social media share, in general, generated about $1.78 in ticket sales. Facebook shares came in with the highest value at $2.52, followed by email at $2.34, and lastly Twitter at .043. Therefore, as you can see, the real value in social media users is not only in acquiring new ones, but it is in activating those users once they're in your community.

So why are buddees (fans on brandbuddee), brand advocates across all networks, and Facebook superfans so important? They are much more active on social media and are vocal about what they like and don't like—they naturally attract more passive internet users and friends who look to them for their opinions and recommendations. These super users like to share about their brand experiences, break news first, and enjoy promotions and discounts from the brand—the perks of being "in the know". The reason for this is because people would rather depend on reliable information from friends who they see as "in the know" or to have some experience with a particular interest category in the past. People want to eliminate the distance from point A to B to save time and avoid potential negative outcomes of choosing the wrong products. That's why they rely on their super user friends (mavens) for this type of information. Now, how is your brand going to take advantage of the opportunity to grow a relationship with these super users? Next time you are managing your community over social media, notice the people that consistently like your posts or ask questions, that'll give you a start in the right direction. Your immediate network will provide the base for acquiring a larger base and getting the word out about your brand—treat them well and listen to their needs!

Why brandbuddee works for businesses and consumers

Why brandbuddee works for businesses and consumers

If you haven’t heard about brandbuddee yet, you’re in for a treat. It’s a new website that allows regular people like you and me to discover cool things happening in our city, be the first to know about what all of our favorite brands are up to in one place, and most importantly, earn points and rewards for sharing things that interest you. It’s the better way to be an influencer: a person with exclusive access to everything happening in town and the ability to earn rewards from every brand that you love—and you don’t need to be a celebrity to qualify. Let’s dive into a few core philosophies that this community we call “the buddee system” provides.

- We don’t pay people to share—we only reward them with things they love

 The concept of incentive is very important for both the business and the consumer. brandbuddee is the only website that provides a unique model that gets results for businesses and allows consumers to gain exclusive access and rewards without feeling guilty. Who wants to advertise to their friends? Nobody. We solve that problem by rewarding you with products or services that you already use, something you would already be talking about, but haven’t.

Don’t you wish some of these brands noticed that you were a key influencer and rewarded you? Now they can and you don’t have to feel guilty about walking to the front of the line the next time you’re going out or maybe treating your friends to a free meal at a local restaurant. These are the kind of rewards the brands on brandbuddee provide for their influencers.

We are adamantly against paying consumers (our buddees) to share content from brands.  We believe it’s disingenuous  and adds little value to the business.  With brandbuddee, incentives are a win-win for the business and the consumer.  The business is able to get customers in-store or products in key influencer’s hands while gaining a massive amount of social media buzz and traffic. Consumers win because they are the first to know about exclusive content, the first to share, and earn rewards that nobody else can for doing something they do all day anyway—social networking.

- It’s easy for people to earn rewards

It’s easier than you think to earn rewards on brandbuddee, and  this interaction provides a lot of value for the participating brands as well. Most campaigns require around 20 points to earn the reward, that’s one social media share and 17 of your friends checking out the story that you shared.

To give you an idea of how easy that is to earn, most people can earn a reward with one tweet and one Facebook post. Still having trouble? Use a variety of the social sharing tools found on the campaign page for the story you’re sharing. Direct posting to your networks is the easiest, but you can also use the “Facebook Send” button to email friends or send messages to specific people that you’re friends with on Facebook. If you’d like, you can also recruit your friends to help you share by asking them to retweet the story you are sharing. Always be sure to include compelling, original content or information  provided on the campaign page for the story so that your friends know why it’s interesting or relevant for them to check it out.

Most rewards are very easy to earn with 30 points or less.  Some require a bit more work, like the Caribbean Cruise Trip giveaway at 2500 points.  So far we’ve had 3 people win it—so it’s definitely possible. If you want to learn how to earn more points, email us at info@brandbuddee.com at anytime and we’d love to work with you on it.

- It’s easy for brands and businesses to measure what we do

A business owner needs to see results to be successful. We deliver them. Our analytics dashboard gives you an idea of who your top influencer’s are, the amount of traffic you were able to drive, and coupled with your Google Analytics will show you how visitors interacted with your website. Social media doesn’t always lead to immediate sales, and most marketing doesn’t either.  Social media is about discovery, building relationships, and brand awareness.  That’s what brandbuddee is all about!

We help your customers and influencers in your area to discover your business and content, share it to increase brand awareness, and build a long-lasting relationship with you that is known industry-wide as brand advocacy, but we refer to it as the “buddee system”.

We’ve seen our clients get immediate sales from using brandbuddee, but the real value is in the long-term. The reason for this is because people use social media to discuss ideas and discover things, they don’t necessarily have a “need” yet, until they find out about it on their favorite social networking sites. More importantly, when they do find out, it’s referred from a trusted friend, somebody that believes in the brand.

Neilson and Forrester Research say consumers trust word-of-mouth from friends 90% of the time compared to only 14% from traditional advertising. Unlike internet searching, where somebody may have a need that instigated the search in the first place , social media discovery plants a seed and puts your business in front of them, almost creating that “need”. Not to mention, they are more likely to respond to their friends than click on one of your display ads. Statistics show consumers are more likely to survive a plane crash than click on a display ad.  

Don’t let your marketing strategy crash and burn the same way, invest into word-of-mouth marketing and building a long-term engagement strategy.

- brandbuddee sharing is organic and relevant                       

brandbuddee believes in organic social media recommendations that are not only relevant for the business, but also for the buddee influencer’s friends. Quite simply,  brandbuddee drives traffic towards a brand’s goods or services through their existing fan base.

What’s Teenager Tim going to do with movie tickets to a movie he doesn’t actually want to see after earning them from sharing the story on brandbuddee? Well, he may take his girlfriend, but he’s still reaching and influencing others like him regardless.  It just might spark a need for his friends to take their girls to see the movie because their friend recommended it.  Good move, huh?

What’s Mommy Mollie going to do with the kids’ shoes she earned on brandbuddee after recommending it to her community of thousands of moms? She’s going to give them to her son of course, because his feet are growing much too quickly.  Those other moms will remember that brand of footwear that Mommy Mollie recommended for future children’s shoe purchases.

brandbuddee is a place where brands and consumers win—a place where buddees get rewarded for sharing and brands get discovered by millions of people.  It’s time you get rewarded for being a brand’s number one fan!

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Andy Karuza

CEO

brandbuddee.com

Preparing for SFW 2010

2010

It's a new decade and in a way seems to hold the possibility of a new beginning after sustaining a rough start to the mellenium. see(www.time.com/nation/article/0,8599,1942834,00.html). Personally, I prefer to go through the rough times because it only allows you room to improve on your position making life interesting and exciting. Naturally, I've noticed that when times are going well people tend to distance themselves from eachother as individual accomplishments are greater when shared with less people. When things go downhill you really see the community start to collaborate and that is where I would like to begin this thought.

My time in Seattle has been about a year at this point, although I've been working in the marketing/promotion scene for several years in other cities. Before my time here I could only piece together an imaginative view of what the Seattle scene was like based on what I had heard from various people while living up north in Bellingham. At the times of prosperity, Seattle seemed to be a city of disconnected groups (Regarding nightlife and fashion) as there seemed enough to go around for everybody. Naturally, each group would be able to maximize its gains by working independantly and therefore that was the norm. The problem with a lack of community cohesiveness ultimately leads to a seperation of talent and resources; therefore the BIG picture never really gets THAT big. I came into Seattle last year as an intern for Seattle Fashion Week and was immediately greeted by some very talented individuals. The big city inspired me because of the unbounded possibilities left to be discovered although I would soon find out that the city isn't actually that big...

Through social media and by just plain networking I soon found that everybody was connected somehow and in someway. You could start a conversation with somebody, find out their field of interest, toss out a name related to that field of interest, and (BOOM!)they would know that person. From there, the conversation would lead you to find out that the very person you were talking to happened to go grade school with you! Small world...So, how hard can it really be to get the community together when people are already connected so well?

In comes the current state of todays society and economy. I smell opportunity for new ventures, businesses, collaborations, and ways of living life in general. Most recently I have noticed that many of these previously disconnected groups have begun to collaborate together. I've seen it in the nightlife scene, local business scene, and undoubtedly the fashion scene. The reason being is that these individual groups are no longer making it so well on their own. So, here comes the BIG picture in this small world. Through collaborations I've seen these groups not only survive but come to surpass their previous position. In down times the community really comes together and I mean that. An earthquake in Haiti leads to an outpour of support from around the world, however people don't normally commit that much for charity. A large decrease in business for one company leads to them reaching out to other businesses to share resources (The smart ones). In doing so, they reach into new consumer market segments and therefore establish a broader range of long-term relationships that will help the business flourish in the coming years when the economy picks up.

Now moving on from the broad general Seattle scene to the really (Really, Really) small world of Seattle fashion. Everybody in the scene knows eachother and you can bet that not everybody is working together on one project that stands for the "BIG picture". There are many fashion show groups in Seattle working independantly of one another and they are successful...in this city. Along comes Seattle Fashion Week. In layman's terms I put it out there as the superbowl for fashion for those not really involved in the scene. It's an opportunity for Seattle to collaborate and produce the "BIG picture" which can be showcased on a national level. In recent year's Seattle Fashion Week has been successful in placing models, designers, and music artists into the bigger national circuit from the exposure they recieved at SFW.

Wrapping everything together now so that it all makes sense. To me, Seattle Fashion Week is about collaboration and how that coorelates with building the BIG picture. Without collaborating with others we will never achieve that and can only settle for the mediocrity that prevails from trying to do everything independantly. Each and everything you do individually in life will compare nothing to the achievement of a great team heading in the right direction. The recent economic times, techonology, and social media have moved our communities closer together than ever before. There are no excuses left for Seattle not to make an impression on the national scene. You may hear it from a friend in conversation, recieve a text to your phone, or notice your friends joining the Seattle Fashion Week fan page on Facebook. Whatever the means that brings SFW 2010 to your ears, I want you to understand that you are a part of it just like the rest of the team here on the SFW board. It's a chance for a collaboration to bring together local businesses, socialites, students, fashion designers, and your average layman to be a part of something that I like to call the BIG picture; Working together on a fashion showcase that'll put our talent in the national spotlight and fullfill it's purpose of promoting the local fashion/music scene.

Promotion: Encouragement of the progress, growth, or acceptance of something; furtherance

Andy Karuza
Promotions Manager
Seattle Fashion Week