Presentation given to the 2012 I-COM conference in Rome demonstrating how it is possible to link social media conversation data to sales and therefore demonstrate the business value of social media.

1. BUSINESS IMPACT
OF SOCIAL MEDIA
TIM MCLOUGHLIN
HEAD OF SOCIAL MEDIA INSIGHT
AEGIS MEDIA & CARAT UK

2. PROJECT SUMMARY
“Is there a business
impact of social media?”
• British Gas, UK home and
business energy provider
• Already made heavy investment
in paid and organic social media

3. PROBLEM
Investment Results?
After investing in social media they The investment:
wanted to know “why”
• Full time social media manager
• Should they: • Facebook page
• Continue to invest? • Twitter account
• Withdraw investment? • Paid display for sponsorship pages
• Change their focus?

4. HOW WE TACKLED IT
Data acquisition
Brand
Sales, site visits, eCRM,
tracking, NPS, customer
search
churn
Test business trends against social media trends
Product, brand, customer Volume and sentiment
service conversations changes
Positive correlation
Removing seasonality Removing linear trends

5. SOCIAL MEDIA CORRELATION
80 2000
70
One week time lag 1500
60
50 1000
Sentiment Score
40
500
30
Sales
20
0
10
0 -500
-10
-1000
-20
-30 -1500
Change in sentiment score: service & repair British Gas HomeCare: natural search

6. RESULTS
Changes in
Changes in
agree: “British
sentiment about
Gas is easy to Brand prices reflected by
deal with” Search
reflective of brand
tracking change in search
volumes
sentiment
3 week time lag
1 week time lag
Pricing and
Product sentiment
and product sales
Sales Acquisition acquisition and
sentiment

7. IMPACT
Campaign to highlight product messaging & improve sentiment
Active monitoring and engagement to improve sentiment
Reach, engagement, sentiment = KPIs set for social media