Britain Got
Talent’s Susan Boyle belting out “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserable garners
more than 50 million views on YouTube. 
Ashton Kutcher’s entourage of Twitter followers tops a million.  And Burger King’s quirky “Whopper Sacrifice”
promotion on Facebook leads to nearly 250 million people being defriended for a
free burger.

When it
comes to consumer applications of social media it’s apparent that success is
typically judged based on the number of exposures.  That’s because the need for brand reputation
and awareness has long driven how consumer-oriented marketers allocate their
resources.

Does the
same hold true in a business-to-business environment where purchase decisions
are made by a select few?  Surprisingly,
the answer is “yes,” however for reasons other than the value of broad market
visibility.

At
Strategic Communications Group (Strategic), we’ve found that attracting a balance
of quantity and quality of readership is the formula for achieving measurable
benchmarks in areas such as lead generation, enterprise sales support, search
engine optimization (SEO) and executive visibility. 

There are a
couple of contributing factors at work here. 
For starters, a large, diverse and engaged readership confers
credibility on the ideas, thoughts and views expressed via social media
tactics. 

For
instance, the impact of a blog is typically evaluated based on its readership,
number of comments and authority (http://technorati.com/blogs/strategicguy.blogspot.com).  A strong showing in these areas enhances how
a highly placed, executive-level reader may view the quality of the blog and
the expertise of its author.

Second, a
sizeable and expanding community of followers and/or readers allows a company
to create the perception of tremendous momentum for and interest in its
solutions.  Geoffrey Moore’s classic book
“Crossing the Chasm” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm)
outlined the positive sales impact that occurs when a company creates a
bandwagon effect, establishing its products as the de facto standard.

Strategic’s
promotional approach when it comes to social media content is to caste a wide
net through participation in broad-based online networks and social bookmark
communities (http://www.reddit.com), while
working closely with the client’s sales organization to laser-target on
specific customers and prospects. 

Quantity
and quality of readers…that’s ultimately the result.

Marc Hausman is president/CEO of Strategic Communications Group, a public relations and social media consultancy based in Silver Spring, Maryland.  Read more at: http://strategicguy.blogspot.com.