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A key mistake made by brands when they first enter the social sphere is to forget that they’ll need a way to measure the tangible success of their efforts. Effectively brands leave themselves unable to measure the ROI of their social activity and as a result it can very easily become a wasted effort.

When you first engage through sites such as Facebook or Twitter it’s very easy to be fooled into thinking that a million online followers is an end to itself, but if you haven’t at the very least considered a future strategy for turning your new online friends (followers and fans) into *real* customers, it’s highly unlikely to happen on its own.

Just as with any other marketing campaign, clear objectives should be set right from the start that can be clearly measured and analysed in order to tell you exactly how successful your activities have been.

A lot of people talk about blogger outreach but what does it mean and how does it add value? Here’s an overview of what it involves, what you should expect and some tips on how to get the best results.

At its simplest level blogger outreach is the integration of blogger relationships into a Social CRM strategy. By building long-term relationships with relevant and interested bloggers it’s possible to open up a whole new means of broadcasting your message to niche audiences who are actively interested and engaged. In addition, word-of-mouth recommendations from bloggers can be very influential, especially if they have a faithful readership that trust and follow their opinions.

However, it’s worth noting that blogger outreach is one of the hardest aspects of Social CRM to get right as a poorly thought-out strategy can easily backfire and possibly even damage your brand or reputation online. Bloggers can be savage and merciless in exposing ill-informed or overly tactical approaches, and this is why (most but not all) PR agencies often get it wrong.

According to Econsultancy’s latest Social Media and Online PR Report, 76% of companies don’t have an ROI figure for their social media spend.

This means that – shockingly – fewer than 1 in 4 companies actually know when their social media activities have been worth the money they’ve spent on them. Even more amazingly, only 7% of firms actively integrate their television and radio campaigns with their social media activities.

There’s no question that when it comes to Social CRM and accurately measuring the success of all your online activities some metrics are essential and some are entirely misleading.

It can be hard sometimes trying to explain this to clients whose starting point is that they want to get 100,000 fans on Facebook or 50,000 video views on YouTube, without having thought through what these numbers really mean and how valuable these “followers” are. If you get too focused on these numbers you can end up following the “stupid metrics”.

Human beings crave trust. Even with total strangers in the “real world” we assign trust based on appearance and body language. But how do you build trust online, without any face-to-face contact?  The following pillars of trust can be employed with great effectiveness.

Appearance

First impressions matter. We try to put our best foot forward on first dates and job interviews. The same should be done online.

• Professionalism of design – Fonts, colors, and graphical elements must combine into a single visual “look”.
• Sparseness & neatness – Less is more. Ruthlessly edit everything on the page until it is pared to its essence.
• Organization & clarity - Too many choices of what to do on the page can be paralyzing, forcing your visitors to spend time trying to figure out what to read first.