Direct Response in a Social Media World: Interview with Jay Baer

Don’t waste your time by reading airy-fairy articles by SocMed posers. Instead, read Jay’s unexpected and insightful answers to my questions below.

Thanks to Sr. Editor Janet Roberts for her surgical edit job on this interview which follows directly...

Taking a Direct Response Approach to Social Media

Larry Chase: Is it fair to attribute direct response measurements to Social Media?

Jay Baer: You have to ask, do you care about the social or about the media? And we care about both.

LC: Suppose a company says, "We're strapped for budget; we just let a thousand people go, and we cut back on a lot of our marketing campaigns. Now you tell me we should be on Facebook. Tell me how I get my money out of that."

JB: Companies have to know what they want to accomplish. Is it awareness, sales or loyalty? Pick a horse. You can't segment your messaging in social the way you can in digital or offline.

In social media, you put your message out there, whether it's in a blog, on Twitter or Facebook, and everybody sees it, regardless of where they are in the relationship cycle.

Jay Baer's Favorite SocMed Tools (Right Now)

LC: You say that anytime you mention SocMed tools in your blog posts, the click-through rate goes off the charts, as opposed to helpful advice about how to use those tools or how to look at Social Media. Why?

JB: Because we're still in the early days of Social Media. As much as I would like to get to the point where people are asking "How do we change our business as a result of Social Media?," people are still asking "How do we do Social Media? How do we make sense of it?"

Social Media isn't hard, but it's complicated and getting more complicated every day because there are more tools to help you do it.

Unless you have the luxury to do Social Media for a living, there's got to be some easier way to make it more efficient. So, there's a thirst for knowledge.

LC: What are your favorite Social Media tools?

1. Buffer

JB: You install Buffer into your browser toolbar, and when you go to a web page and find something you want to Tweet, you click a button.

Buffer sets up your Tweet, including the times you want to send it, and then auto-Tweets it for you. It's ideal for someone who does content curation on Twitter as I do, to point to other resources.

2. PostRank

JB: PostRank Analytics is a fantastic tool for measuring your blog and determining the comparative value of each blog post. It aggregates Tweets, Digg posts, comments, shares, page views and other measurements and puts it all in one place to see which blog posts succeeded and why that might be.

3. SWIX

JB: This is an easy-to-use, beautiful, interactive Social Media scoreboarding system. If you want to see how your company did on YouTube, on Twitter, a lot of the metrics we talked about, all of that data gets pumped in and it creates animated scoreboards in one place. Those are fantastic for putting together reports.

4. WP4FB

JB: WP4FB is a plug-in for your WordPress blog, which allows you to create Facebook landing pages from within WordPress. Every company with a Facebook Fan Page should have this, a custom landing page. You can do it right away. It's quick, free, and you can knock it out in 10 minutes without having someone build it for you.

'Social Graph' is the New Rolodex

LC: You talk about how (co-author) Amber Naslund's social graph helps Radian6. How so? Also, please define "social graph."

JB: When you hear "social graph," it means the totality of your connections across the social web. That comprises your personal social graph. It is the new Rolodex.

In the old days, you would count how many business cards you had, or how many phone numbers you possessed; then, it was how many phone numbers and email addresses you had. Now it's phone numbers, email addresses, Twitter followers, Facebook friends, and so on.

When someone has a robust social graph and then joins a company like Radian6, it becomes mutually beneficial. The company benefits from all the people she already knows in Social Media, and she benefits because the company throws gasoline on the fire of her own work and her influence.

Should You Farm Out Your Voice?

LC: When it comes to Social Media, you say companies shouldn't "farm out their voice." What do you mean by that?

JB: The temptation in these early days is to say "Let's just outsource it. Let's have our agency take care of everything." When you get pretty serious about Social Media and using it as a way to engage with customers and prospects quickly and authentically, it's hard to have a third party do that.

That typically doesn't happen with big brands because they usually have enough staff to handle their Social Media operations. But we know Social Media isn't inexpensive. You're trading media dollars for labor dollars. Smaller companies don't have extra people lying around to do the work.

Are Social Media Users Commitment Shy?

LC: I liked your comment in a recent webinar that when a Facebook fan clicks the "Like" button, he isn't taking a blood oath. Can you give me other significant things to measure besides "Likes?"

JB: A click is low impact. It might have long-term benefits, but the actual process of becoming a Facebook fan is low impact. Typing in a URL requires more than clicking a "Like" button. Signing up for an email newsletter requires more. Downloading anything requires more effort than clicking a "Like" button.

LC: So, exertion is commitment?

JB: Yes, if you think of all online behaviors that a customer or prospect can engage in, the ones that require more of people ultimately indicate higher levels of commitment.

About Jay Baer + Resources

Jay Baer publishes the blog "Convince & Convert" and is co-author of The NOW Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter and More Social.

He also recommends these books for integrating business and Social Media:

• Social Media ROI: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization by Olivier Blanchard
• How to Market to People Not Like You: 'Know It or Blow It' Rules for Reaching Diverse Customers by Kelly McDonald
• Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and more) that Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman