Prioritizing Your Web Marketing Budget - What Slice of the Pie Should Social Media Get?

Geoff Livingston live blogged the Network Solutions Solutions Stars Video Conference -- by a team of Internet marketing and social media rock stars.  The advice is geared for small businesses, not nonprofits, but a lot of it relevant and translatable.   The topics addressed include:

• Building Web Presence
• The Social Opportunity
• Start with Listening
• Strategy Drives Outreach
• You Need Social Networks
• To Blog or Not to Blog
• Visibility Through Search
• Rising Above the Noise
• Time Demands

One of the messages that came through from this group of experts is that social media can give you a lot of return for your investment.  That investment is staff time as many of the tools are free.  Then again, time is one of the most valuable resources a nonprofit has ...   And, as Geoff points out social media does take time and it can take away from core operations - if you let it.   Geoff offers some time management techniques for social media strategists or what I'd like to call "Social Productivity" (I'm developing a workshop on that one ...)

So, if you incorporate social media - and allocate the time - and no matter how efficient you are - something will have to give.  Where does social media time/money fit within the overall web marketing budget?  What are the right proportions?

It just so happened that after reading Geoff's posts .. via my social network I stumbled upon colleague  Stephen Blyth musing about allocating money on a nonprofit web's strategy. Quoting some notes from a workshop presented at Craigslist Foundation Nonprofit Bootcamp by Colin Delaney of ePolitics and Laura Quinn.  (Resource list and Powerpoint Here)

Here's a screen capture of one of the slides that illustrates the structure they used:

They divided the pie into equal thirds as follows:

• Website (as a home base)
• Email Communication (to talk to your friends)
• Online Outreach (to reach new friends) (They included social media/networking, search engine optimization, etc)

They recommend that you allocate time and budget equally 1/3 between each.

This sounds good, but I wish that the sections were as clear cut as the illustration.  Are those categories mutually really exclusive?  I kept wanting to blend them ...

Especially after viewing this slide show and especially this slide ..

Welcome to the Social World

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialproducts internet)

What do I know, maybe I'm drinking too much Koolaid, so here goes ..

Homebase: Home base is your website and it could also be your blog or both. Not everyone needs a web site and a blog - that age old question - to blog or not to blog?  Some organizations consolidate.   A blog is a form of social media and I wouldn't necessarily classify as "outreach."  I might also add some of the costs of content creation for videos/podcasts/photos that live on your site (or blog) and on other social networking sites.   And, of course, the cost ensuring that you have set up RSS feeds or what Chris Brogan classifies as "passports."

Outbound Communication:  I'd put together all the one-way or "talking to you" tactics here. This is mostly email marketing -- crafting and putting out solid email communications - your email newsletter and CRM.   Perhaps search engine optimization and search engine advertising costs.   Email will probably not become extinct - so it is important to continue to track its effectiveness.

Online Outreach and Relationship Building:  This would include time spent on setting up social networking profiles, uploading content on places like flickr or Youtube, etc.    It would also include the time spent listening, participating, and joining the conversation.   To prioritize your time, you might concentrate your activity on 1-3 sites, but there are some good reasons to at least set up a presence on many sites.

I've probably muddied the waters here.   How are you thinking about the integration of social media into your overall Internet marketing budget?  How are you making decisions about how you allocate your time and money on social media and in the context of your internet marketing budget?   If you incorporate social media, what are you letting go of or cutting back on?  Why?

Comments

[Steve Bridger]

1. I would encourage organizations to adopt JOINT BUDGETING to bust some silos and instill a sense of OWNERSHIP of participatory media.

2. While many of the tools are low-cost, organizations should RESOURCE FOR PARTICIPATION. Consider whether your organization and that person who writes content for the website that is hardly ever read may be better served doing something different, e.g. ‘growing’ them into a community manager-type role. Don’t forget that volunteer activists or community ‘champions’ may welcome free passes to your annual conference. Budget for that. In my experience, we’re still poor at distributing trust and assigning individuals within departments to take ownership for implementing and monitoring engagement strategies.

3. LEAVE SOME SLACK in the budget for opportunistic and innovatory tactics, which we cannot yet foresee. You may need to allocate a total budget, but argue against having to break all of it down to specific activity. No point planning to spend money on Facebook, or whatever, when in 6 months time, people have moved to something else.

4. Allocate some resources for TRAINING / PERSONAL DIGITAL COACHING to embed experience across the organization. Don’t keep the expertise within the web team; they may leave and take their knowledge with them.

[Tiffany Sellers]

This post specifically answered a question I was asking myself just earlier today! I'm about to be involved with redefining the communication strategies (blogs, email, etc.) for a nonprofit org. They currently blog for and email members, but I felt that they weren't reaching an audience beyond those who have already bought in. Using social media for outreach seems the obvious next step, but I wasn't sure how to re-prioritize the time spent in online efforts. So:

"If you incorporate social media, what are you letting go of or cutting back on? Why?"

I think incorporating a social media aspect might mean splitting the time that would've been given to the blog, website, and member emails in half, since ultimately those things are all ways of reaching the same group of people. I'd utilize the rest of my web time using social media to engage new members.

[Dominique Hind]

There is a lot of work that can be done by utilising your networks and associates. I have recently done an analysis of my own blog looking at what worked and what hasn't. One of the biggest drivers of traffic to my blog was via social networks (using my blog URL in my profile and updating my status). This is something that non-for profits can use as well. The only cost is time. For other insights into what works with driving traffic have a read of this post: http://dominiquehind.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/whats-working-on-my-blog-stats-update/

I would be really interested to hear your feedback.

[Beth Kanter]

Dominique:

I recently did a ROI analysis on my blog
http://tinyurl.com/6qk7w2

Traffic isn't the only benefit - and the investment is time.

[Laura Quinn]

Okay, I'm a little late to this party, but... thanks for your shout out to our presentation.

Yes, I'm honestly a little troubled by this slide myself. It's a really useful structure in trying to cover all of Online Communications in an hour and half (not easy!), but it does imply that email is the only way to communicate with your friends online. I think that email is an incredibly effective method for this, and much more proven than other methods, but clearly other things - blogs, RSS feeds, social networking sites, etc, etc - also can help.

And we're more feeling around for a ratio than actually saying that 1/3rd to each of these areas is it. Though do note that when we say 1/3rd to Outreach, that's not synonymous with social media - we include things like search engine optimization and creating buzz-worthy website resources in there.