Everyone is talking about the impact of social media – but all we are coming by are assessments of social media doing just that – affecting us ‘socially.’ As it is so new many fail to understand its worth or value within marketing. Social Media is affectively ‘word of mouth’ marketing, which we all understand to be effective, but how can we control what one person is saying to another? And how can we measure this cost?

The short answer is that it is difficult. The long answer is that Brash can combine software tools readily available on the net to assess whether social media works for you. We don’t mean by simply seeing how many friends or fans you have – as the number one rule of social marketing is it’s not about the number of fans or followers you have, but about the peaks and troughs of engagement and Reach.

What is Reach?

Reach is a funny word in social media marketing. We call this lateral marketing. Traditional means of marketing are more often referred to as vertical marketing – you start with a printed product, you send this to a person who either passes that on to another person or throws it away. The number of people to see that printed product is therefore, very limited.

In Social Media however, each post or update is able to be seen, interacted with, commented on, liked, retweeted etc. and each time is sent out to hoards of other people who may do the same. This is shared and ‘heard’ therefore in a lateral sense – with all people receiving that one message at one moment in real time.

But isn’t only big brands that fair well on social channels?

Of course not. Inspiresme.co.uk last year reported that smaller companies are currently getting the highest returns from social media – according to research from multinational business accommodation and services firm Regus, smaller firms are using social media tools more effectively and commanding a higher ROI than larger companies. The survey found that 42% of SMEs questioned have won contracts due to social media activity. This compares to 35% of businesses with 250 employees or more.

Celia Donne, regional director at Regus, said: “Social networking has finally come into its own in the commercial world, with the SME sector taking full advantage of their business contacts and commercial agility to surge ahead of the game when it comes to finding new customers.”

Let us know your thoughts, below.