1. Understanding the
Social Shift
How State Associations Can
Leverage Social Media
This document provides supplemental data, tools, tips,
resources and suggestions that expand upon the
presentation delivered at APSCU2012 for those State
Associations who wish to pursue their social media
strategy to accomplish business objectives.

2. How is Social Media Relevant to Business?
Social Media is One Component of an Inbound Marketing Strategy
Social media is merely one component of an inbound marketing strategy for businesses. If you have
goals of increasing brand awareness, increasing/expanding/improving value perception, improving
customer loyalty, increasing revenues, improving collaboration, or a number of other objectives, social
media provides a tremendous opportunity to accomplish these objectives.
Digital Behavior of Consumers
The Internet in 2012
 By the end of 2012, more than ¾ of the total U.S. population will be online representing 239
million people which is 75.6% of the total population
Social Networks in 2012
 By the end of 2012, 2/3 of web users will use social networks
 55% of Americans 45-54 have a profile on a social networking site
 The biggest growth of any age cohort from 2011 to 2012 was 45-54 year olds who now exhibit
participation matching the U.S. average. The only group below average is 55+ and even 3 of 10
are on a social network.
 22% of Americans use social networking sites several times per day
 16.6% of all online minutes are on social networks (and growing to be most engaging online
activity by end of 2012)
Ecommerce in 2012
 88.1% of US internet users ages 14+ will browse or research products online in 2012
 83.9% of internet researchers will make at least one purchase via the web during 2012
 Online buyers will reach 154.6 million in 2012
Mobile in 2012
 Mobile internet users will reach 113.9 million in 2012
 Smartphone users will reach 106.7 million
 By the end of 2012, 94% of Smartphone users will be mobile internet users
Online Video in 2012
 53.5% of the total U.S. population and 70.8% of internet users will watch online video in 2012
Sources:
U.S. Digital Media Usage Report: eMarketer
The Social Habit: Edison Research
comScore 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus Report

3. Understand Your Audience
Social Technographics Ladder
In order to design a social media strategy tailored to your target audience, it helps to have insight about
their social computing behaviors. Social computing behaviors can be described by 7 classifications
outlined below in Forrester’s Social Technographics Ladder explaining each class of social consumer.

4. Profile Your Customers
The Social Technology Profile Tool offers an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the social
computing behaviors of different audiences by demographic. It can be used to help you better
understand your target audience. http://empowered.forrester.com/tool_consumer.html.

5. Goals and Measurement
These are a sample of metrics along with tools and ideas on what specific items to measure that align
with your objective.
Awareness Metrics How to Measure
Positive Social Mentions Socialmention (www.socialmention.com)
Share of Voice Socialmention (www.socialmention.com)
Referral Traffic from Social Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics)
Outposts
New Visitors from Social Outposts Google Analytics (www.google.com/analytics)
Inbound Links Open Site Explorer (www.opensiteexplorer.org)
Search Volume Trends Google Insights for Search (www.google.com/insights/search/)
Content Consumption Pageviews, downloads, views
Sales Metrics How to Measure
Social Media-Only Offers Conversions from a social-only campaigns
Lead Generation Expressed Interest (Request for follow-up, registration,
phone/email inquiry from content, etc.)
Sales Funnel Behaviors Google Analytics - Conversions, Conversion Rates, Revenues
generated from referral traffic
Loyalty Metrics How to Measure
Long-term Registration Propensity) Membership Renewal, Event Attendance, Program
Participation, etc. (Look at frequency over time)
Content Sharing Share metrics
Content Subscription Blog Subscribers, Channel Subscribers, Newsletter, etc.
Engagement Google Analytics (Unique Visits, Frequency of Visit relative to
Recency of Visit, Page Views, Time spent on site)
Influence Klout (www.klout.com), PeerIndex (www.peerindex.com)
Propensity to Promote (Brand NPS, Customer Surveys, Polls (www.thepolltaker.com),
Advocacy) Sentiment (www.socialmention.com)
Other ROI Outcomes
Market Research – Using community as a feedback loop (Polls, Responses to Questions, Surveys)
Customer Service Efficiencies – Using community to help each other
Group Learning – No one knows as much as everyone – groups & social learning add value for everyone
Lobbying Action – Scale collaboration for political lobbying efforts (Ask for supportive action)
Public Relations – Contributing to the private sector story on public channels serves the entire sector
Targeted Relationships – Make one-on-one connections for multiple goals from politics to prospecting