Making Money With Youtube

After a week of on-and-off rumors about Google making an offer for Groupon, there are now multiple reports that the web giant is close to paying as much as $6 billion for the social-shopping service, which has been growing faster than just about any tech-related company in recent memory — including Google. If true, the deal would be almost twice the size of the search company’s largest acquisition ever (the $3.1-billion purchase of DoubleClick in 2007), and would be a gigantic bet on two trends that Google has so far failed to really take advantage of: namely, the movement of local advertising onto the web, and the rise of social behavior online.

Google’s $1.65-billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006 makes a good comparison for its apparent interest in Groupon: At the time, online video — and just as important, the sharing and embedding of that video — was clearly the future of the web, but Google was a tiny player in that market and wanted to get big quickly. So it paid what seemed like a massive amount of money at the time for the startup, and has spent the past few years trying to figure out how to monetize that content.

The nice part about Groupon is, while YouTube was located more towards the social end of the spectrum and less the monetization end, the group-buying service is a monetization machine — although one that is also socially oriented, since it takes advantage of consumers’ desire to trigger discounts by forming a group. Clearly one of the big attractions for any acquirer is the fact that Groupon is bringing in an estimated $50 million in revenue a month, and expects to close the year with more than half a billion dollars in sales. That’s after less than two years in existence.

Why has Groupon been able to grow so quickly? As I outline in my latest GigaOM Pro report (subscription required), the startup’s rapid success is a sign of how explosive the power of social media can be when applied to a revenue-generating idea like coupons. As co-founder and angel investor Eric Lefkofsky described in a recent interview about Groupon, the company (which was originally called The Point, and focused on connecting people around social issues and activism) didn’t really take off as a business until it married the viral nature of a group-buying offer with the desire by local retailers to reach out to potential customers. Email is the company’s primary method, but it’s also fueled by social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

More than anything, Groupon has been riding the social-advertising wave, which is something Google desperately wants to own. In many ways, it’s the next step beyond AdWords and AdSense: While those products involve advertising keywords that sit next to searches and capture surfers who are looking for information about specific topics, Groupon reaches out to people who may not even know they want the item yet. The company’s DoubleClick acquisition gave it control of banner advertising, but banners are the past; social advertising is the future. As Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said in a research note this morning, the purchase “is about much more than Google generating revenue from emailed coupons — it’s about Google’s ability to potentially access and utilize the social graph for eCommerce.”

The other important aspect of the deal is that it is primarily focused on local or regional businesses. Groupon has also started promoting national deals of the kind it did with The Gap, but the company’s real power is in helping small and medium-sized retailers, restaurants and other merchants connect with customers directly, and boost demand for their services and products. That’s a market Google hasn’t been able to really capitalize on, despite attempts to do so through its Places feature. That was the rationale behind the web giant’s reported interest in buying Yelp — a deal which didn’t go forward, for unknown reasons — and it is driving its interest in Groupon as well.

What would web advertising look like if Google were to acquire Groupon? Instead of just keyword ads targeted to what you searched for, you could start to see offers directed specifically at your location, or based on things you have searched for in Google Places, or places you have checked in at through Google Latitude, or services you have rated via the web giant’s new and somewhat underwhelming Hotpot recommendation service. Google’s knowledge of algorithms could provide better matching and sorting of those deals, and the search company could also use the knowledge that it gains from Groupon’s millions of users and advertisers to fine-tune some of its other locally focused services.

In a recent interview, Don Rainey of Grotech Ventures — an investor in Groupon’s largest competitor, LivingSocial — talked about a future in which consumers and local businesses could participate in a kind of real-time auction-style marketplace for deals on products and services, so people looking for deals on dinner tonight could survey the offers from local restaurants and pick the ones they wanted, and merchants could fine-tune their offers based on real-time demand. That is one future that Google desperately wants to be part of, and $6 billion probably seems like a small price to pay for a seat at that table. For more on Groupon, please see my GigaOM Pro report.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):

• Why Google Should Fear the Social Web


• Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners


• What We Can Learn From the Guardian’s Open Platform

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Groupon and TechCrunch

Jamie Turner is the chief content officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, now available at fine bookstores (and a few not-so-fine bookstores) everywhere.

Given the hundreds of social media tools available, and the thousands of different ways to use them in business, you’d think that getting Fortune 500 companies on board would be a complex and daunting task.

But it’s not. The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.

These five social approaches, though different in many respects, all have one thing in common: Each of the Fortune 500 use them to generate a profit. After all, they’re not using social media just to be social. They’re using it to make money.

In order to make money with social media, you have to set up your campaigns to be measured. And I’m not talking about simple metrics like number of followers or unique page views (although those are important). I’m talking about real metrics like leads generated, prospects converted and profits realized. Those are the kinds of metrics that enable you to track the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis. And when you’re tracking your social media campaign on an ROI basis, you’re making your CFO happy (along with your CEO, your CMO and everyone else in your company).

1. Branding

Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. While using social media strictly as a branding tool might be considered “old-school” these days, it can still generate some positive sales growth.

Take Toyota as an example. Its YouTube mini-series featuring the Sienna Family has generated more than 8.3 million impressions. Those are not passive impressions fed to consumers during a TV commercial break, but engaged views attained through social sharing. When people share your commercial with their friends, they’re reinforcing your marketing for you, and it’s the best kind.

Of course, one of the most successful campaigns of this type is the Old Spice YouTube campaign that has more than 140 million impressions and, according to Nielsen, helped sales increase 55% in three months, and a whopping 107% during the month of July alone. Part of what made this campaign successful was that Old Spice set it up so it could quickly respond to viewers’ comments about the videos. By engaging the viewers in the videos, Old Spice improved the stickiness of the campaign and, best of all, enhanced the viral nature of it.

2. e-Commerce

If you can sell your product or service online, then you’ll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does. It tweets about special promotions for its folloers on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter. Right now, the DellOutlet account has 1.5 million followers. If you crunch some hypothetical but fair numbers on the back of an envelope, Dell’s ROI might look something like this:

DellOutlet followers: 1.5 million

DellOutlet followers who actually see the promotional Tweet: 50,000

Followers who click on the link in the Tweet: 500

Prospects who purchase a computer based on the Tweet: 50

50 purchases x $500 computer = $25,000

That’s $25,000 in revenue just for sending out a tweet. Not bad for a day’s work. Of course you’ll have to put in the effort to build your Twitter community in the first place, but those are certainly resources well spent, given the potential return.

3. Research

Many companies are using social media as a tool to do simple, anecdotal research. Sometimes, this involves building a website that engages customers in a dialogue. Starbucks has done this famously with MyStarbucksIdea.com. When visitors land on the site, they’re asked to provide new ideas to Starbucks on ways to improve the brand. Visitors can share ideas, vote on which ideas they like the best, discuss the ideas that have been submitted, and even see the results of their suggestions in action.

But you don’t have to build an entire website to keep tabs on your customers’ needs. Got a blog? Great. Ask your visitors to leave suggestions in your comments section. Have an e-newsletter? Terrific. Use the tools from ConstantContact, ExactTarget or MailChimp to include polls and surveys in your e-newsletter. Active on Twitter? Wonderful. Then use Twtpoll, SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo to drive people to a survey page on these sites.

The bottom line is there are plenty of ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your community’s needs, using social media tools that are readily available to both you and the Fortune 500.

4. Customer Retention

A good rule to remember is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn’t it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That’s what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do. They communicate via Twitter, class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

When Frank Eliason at Comcast first noticed that people were making comments about his company on Twitter, he probably wasn’t very happy. After all, if you’re going to Tweet about your cable company, it’s likely a complaint. So Frank took things into his own hands and started Tweeting back to the disgruntled customers. His tweets offered suggestions and tips on how to fix the problems people were having with their services.

Research has indicated that if you take a customer in a heightened state of anger and help them out, they’ll actually become brand advocates. In other words, they start promoting your brand to others because you reached out to them and helped them at a time of need.

That’s what happened with Frank and Comcast. Customers went from being disgruntled to being brand advocates — all because they were pleasantly surprised when Frank reached out to them via Twitter and helped solve their problems.

If you find yourself reading negative comments in the blogosphere about your brand, don’t shy away from them. Engage with them. You’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

5. Lead Generation

If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service online, you may want to invest in a social B2B lead generation strategy. At my company, we use social media to drive prospects to our online magazine for marketers. When prospects get to the website, they can read a blog post, watch a 60-second video or download a white paper. Once we gather their contact information, we (gently) re-market to them by reminding them of all the great results our partner generates for its clients.

This hub-and-spoke system works like a charm. Why? Because B2B and professional service firms are often sold based on a relationship. Much of the decision process is based on a vendor’s reputation and trustworthiness. What better way to build trust than by providing helpful, useful information to the client prospect via social media?

Remember, when you’re using this hub and spoke system, you don’t want to limit yourself to just the big five (class='blippr-nobr'>LinkedInclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpaceclass="blippr-nobr">MySpace). You’ll also want to use e-mail marketing, speeches, e-books, webinars, blogs, videos and other social media tools to build trust and awareness.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online/> - Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship/> - 35 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses/> - 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter/> - 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

- h p -

After a week of on-and-off rumors about Google making an offer for Groupon, there are now multiple reports that the web giant is close to paying as much as $6 billion for the social-shopping service, which has been growing faster than just about any tech-related company in recent memory — including Google. If true, the deal would be almost twice the size of the search company’s largest acquisition ever (the $3.1-billion purchase of DoubleClick in 2007), and would be a gigantic bet on two trends that Google has so far failed to really take advantage of: namely, the movement of local advertising onto the web, and the rise of social behavior online.

Google’s $1.65-billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006 makes a good comparison for its apparent interest in Groupon: At the time, online video — and just as important, the sharing and embedding of that video — was clearly the future of the web, but Google was a tiny player in that market and wanted to get big quickly. So it paid what seemed like a massive amount of money at the time for the startup, and has spent the past few years trying to figure out how to monetize that content.

The nice part about Groupon is, while YouTube was located more towards the social end of the spectrum and less the monetization end, the group-buying service is a monetization machine — although one that is also socially oriented, since it takes advantage of consumers’ desire to trigger discounts by forming a group. Clearly one of the big attractions for any acquirer is the fact that Groupon is bringing in an estimated $50 million in revenue a month, and expects to close the year with more than half a billion dollars in sales. That’s after less than two years in existence.

Why has Groupon been able to grow so quickly? As I outline in my latest GigaOM Pro report (subscription required), the startup’s rapid success is a sign of how explosive the power of social media can be when applied to a revenue-generating idea like coupons. As co-founder and angel investor Eric Lefkofsky described in a recent interview about Groupon, the company (which was originally called The Point, and focused on connecting people around social issues and activism) didn’t really take off as a business until it married the viral nature of a group-buying offer with the desire by local retailers to reach out to potential customers. Email is the company’s primary method, but it’s also fueled by social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

More than anything, Groupon has been riding the social-advertising wave, which is something Google desperately wants to own. In many ways, it’s the next step beyond AdWords and AdSense: While those products involve advertising keywords that sit next to searches and capture surfers who are looking for information about specific topics, Groupon reaches out to people who may not even know they want the item yet. The company’s DoubleClick acquisition gave it control of banner advertising, but banners are the past; social advertising is the future. As Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said in a research note this morning, the purchase “is about much more than Google generating revenue from emailed coupons — it’s about Google’s ability to potentially access and utilize the social graph for eCommerce.”

The other important aspect of the deal is that it is primarily focused on local or regional businesses. Groupon has also started promoting national deals of the kind it did with The Gap, but the company’s real power is in helping small and medium-sized retailers, restaurants and other merchants connect with customers directly, and boost demand for their services and products. That’s a market Google hasn’t been able to really capitalize on, despite attempts to do so through its Places feature. That was the rationale behind the web giant’s reported interest in buying Yelp — a deal which didn’t go forward, for unknown reasons — and it is driving its interest in Groupon as well.

What would web advertising look like if Google were to acquire Groupon? Instead of just keyword ads targeted to what you searched for, you could start to see offers directed specifically at your location, or based on things you have searched for in Google Places, or places you have checked in at through Google Latitude, or services you have rated via the web giant’s new and somewhat underwhelming Hotpot recommendation service. Google’s knowledge of algorithms could provide better matching and sorting of those deals, and the search company could also use the knowledge that it gains from Groupon’s millions of users and advertisers to fine-tune some of its other locally focused services.

In a recent interview, Don Rainey of Grotech Ventures — an investor in Groupon’s largest competitor, LivingSocial — talked about a future in which consumers and local businesses could participate in a kind of real-time auction-style marketplace for deals on products and services, so people looking for deals on dinner tonight could survey the offers from local restaurants and pick the ones they wanted, and merchants could fine-tune their offers based on real-time demand. That is one future that Google desperately wants to be part of, and $6 billion probably seems like a small price to pay for a seat at that table. For more on Groupon, please see my GigaOM Pro report.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):

• Why Google Should Fear the Social Web


• Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners


• What We Can Learn From the Guardian’s Open Platform

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Groupon and TechCrunch

Jamie Turner is the chief content officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, now available at fine bookstores (and a few not-so-fine bookstores) everywhere.

Given the hundreds of social media tools available, and the thousands of different ways to use them in business, you’d think that getting Fortune 500 companies on board would be a complex and daunting task.

But it’s not. The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.

These five social approaches, though different in many respects, all have one thing in common: Each of the Fortune 500 use them to generate a profit. After all, they’re not using social media just to be social. They’re using it to make money.

In order to make money with social media, you have to set up your campaigns to be measured. And I’m not talking about simple metrics like number of followers or unique page views (although those are important). I’m talking about real metrics like leads generated, prospects converted and profits realized. Those are the kinds of metrics that enable you to track the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis. And when you’re tracking your social media campaign on an ROI basis, you’re making your CFO happy (along with your CEO, your CMO and everyone else in your company).

1. Branding

Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. While using social media strictly as a branding tool might be considered “old-school” these days, it can still generate some positive sales growth.

Take Toyota as an example. Its YouTube mini-series featuring the Sienna Family has generated more than 8.3 million impressions. Those are not passive impressions fed to consumers during a TV commercial break, but engaged views attained through social sharing. When people share your commercial with their friends, they’re reinforcing your marketing for you, and it’s the best kind.

Of course, one of the most successful campaigns of this type is the Old Spice YouTube campaign that has more than 140 million impressions and, according to Nielsen, helped sales increase 55% in three months, and a whopping 107% during the month of July alone. Part of what made this campaign successful was that Old Spice set it up so it could quickly respond to viewers’ comments about the videos. By engaging the viewers in the videos, Old Spice improved the stickiness of the campaign and, best of all, enhanced the viral nature of it.

2. e-Commerce

If you can sell your product or service online, then you’ll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does. It tweets about special promotions for its folloers on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter. Right now, the DellOutlet account has 1.5 million followers. If you crunch some hypothetical but fair numbers on the back of an envelope, Dell’s ROI might look something like this:

DellOutlet followers: 1.5 million

DellOutlet followers who actually see the promotional Tweet: 50,000

Followers who click on the link in the Tweet: 500

Prospects who purchase a computer based on the Tweet: 50

50 purchases x $500 computer = $25,000

That’s $25,000 in revenue just for sending out a tweet. Not bad for a day’s work. Of course you’ll have to put in the effort to build your Twitter community in the first place, but those are certainly resources well spent, given the potential return.

3. Research

Many companies are using social media as a tool to do simple, anecdotal research. Sometimes, this involves building a website that engages customers in a dialogue. Starbucks has done this famously with MyStarbucksIdea.com. When visitors land on the site, they’re asked to provide new ideas to Starbucks on ways to improve the brand. Visitors can share ideas, vote on which ideas they like the best, discuss the ideas that have been submitted, and even see the results of their suggestions in action.

But you don’t have to build an entire website to keep tabs on your customers’ needs. Got a blog? Great. Ask your visitors to leave suggestions in your comments section. Have an e-newsletter? Terrific. Use the tools from ConstantContact, ExactTarget or MailChimp to include polls and surveys in your e-newsletter. Active on Twitter? Wonderful. Then use Twtpoll, SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo to drive people to a survey page on these sites.

The bottom line is there are plenty of ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your community’s needs, using social media tools that are readily available to both you and the Fortune 500.

4. Customer Retention

A good rule to remember is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn’t it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That’s what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do. They communicate via Twitter, class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

When Frank Eliason at Comcast first noticed that people were making comments about his company on Twitter, he probably wasn’t very happy. After all, if you’re going to Tweet about your cable company, it’s likely a complaint. So Frank took things into his own hands and started Tweeting back to the disgruntled customers. His tweets offered suggestions and tips on how to fix the problems people were having with their services.

Research has indicated that if you take a customer in a heightened state of anger and help them out, they’ll actually become brand advocates. In other words, they start promoting your brand to others because you reached out to them and helped them at a time of need.

That’s what happened with Frank and Comcast. Customers went from being disgruntled to being brand advocates — all because they were pleasantly surprised when Frank reached out to them via Twitter and helped solve their problems.

If you find yourself reading negative comments in the blogosphere about your brand, don’t shy away from them. Engage with them. You’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

5. Lead Generation

If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service online, you may want to invest in a social B2B lead generation strategy. At my company, we use social media to drive prospects to our online magazine for marketers. When prospects get to the website, they can read a blog post, watch a 60-second video or download a white paper. Once we gather their contact information, we (gently) re-market to them by reminding them of all the great results our partner generates for its clients.

This hub-and-spoke system works like a charm. Why? Because B2B and professional service firms are often sold based on a relationship. Much of the decision process is based on a vendor’s reputation and trustworthiness. What better way to build trust than by providing helpful, useful information to the client prospect via social media?

Remember, when you’re using this hub and spoke system, you don’t want to limit yourself to just the big five (class='blippr-nobr'>LinkedInclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpaceclass="blippr-nobr">MySpace). You’ll also want to use e-mail marketing, speeches, e-books, webinars, blogs, videos and other social media tools to build trust and awareness.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online/> - Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship/> - 35 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses/> - 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter/> - 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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After a week of on-and-off rumors about Google making an offer for Groupon, there are now multiple reports that the web giant is close to paying as much as $6 billion for the social-shopping service, which has been growing faster than just about any tech-related company in recent memory — including Google. If true, the deal would be almost twice the size of the search company’s largest acquisition ever (the $3.1-billion purchase of DoubleClick in 2007), and would be a gigantic bet on two trends that Google has so far failed to really take advantage of: namely, the movement of local advertising onto the web, and the rise of social behavior online.

Google’s $1.65-billion acquisition of YouTube in 2006 makes a good comparison for its apparent interest in Groupon: At the time, online video — and just as important, the sharing and embedding of that video — was clearly the future of the web, but Google was a tiny player in that market and wanted to get big quickly. So it paid what seemed like a massive amount of money at the time for the startup, and has spent the past few years trying to figure out how to monetize that content.

The nice part about Groupon is, while YouTube was located more towards the social end of the spectrum and less the monetization end, the group-buying service is a monetization machine — although one that is also socially oriented, since it takes advantage of consumers’ desire to trigger discounts by forming a group. Clearly one of the big attractions for any acquirer is the fact that Groupon is bringing in an estimated $50 million in revenue a month, and expects to close the year with more than half a billion dollars in sales. That’s after less than two years in existence.

Why has Groupon been able to grow so quickly? As I outline in my latest GigaOM Pro report (subscription required), the startup’s rapid success is a sign of how explosive the power of social media can be when applied to a revenue-generating idea like coupons. As co-founder and angel investor Eric Lefkofsky described in a recent interview about Groupon, the company (which was originally called The Point, and focused on connecting people around social issues and activism) didn’t really take off as a business until it married the viral nature of a group-buying offer with the desire by local retailers to reach out to potential customers. Email is the company’s primary method, but it’s also fueled by social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

More than anything, Groupon has been riding the social-advertising wave, which is something Google desperately wants to own. In many ways, it’s the next step beyond AdWords and AdSense: While those products involve advertising keywords that sit next to searches and capture surfers who are looking for information about specific topics, Groupon reaches out to people who may not even know they want the item yet. The company’s DoubleClick acquisition gave it control of banner advertising, but banners are the past; social advertising is the future. As Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter said in a research note this morning, the purchase “is about much more than Google generating revenue from emailed coupons — it’s about Google’s ability to potentially access and utilize the social graph for eCommerce.”

The other important aspect of the deal is that it is primarily focused on local or regional businesses. Groupon has also started promoting national deals of the kind it did with The Gap, but the company’s real power is in helping small and medium-sized retailers, restaurants and other merchants connect with customers directly, and boost demand for their services and products. That’s a market Google hasn’t been able to really capitalize on, despite attempts to do so through its Places feature. That was the rationale behind the web giant’s reported interest in buying Yelp — a deal which didn’t go forward, for unknown reasons — and it is driving its interest in Groupon as well.

What would web advertising look like if Google were to acquire Groupon? Instead of just keyword ads targeted to what you searched for, you could start to see offers directed specifically at your location, or based on things you have searched for in Google Places, or places you have checked in at through Google Latitude, or services you have rated via the web giant’s new and somewhat underwhelming Hotpot recommendation service. Google’s knowledge of algorithms could provide better matching and sorting of those deals, and the search company could also use the knowledge that it gains from Groupon’s millions of users and advertisers to fine-tune some of its other locally focused services.

In a recent interview, Don Rainey of Grotech Ventures — an investor in Groupon’s largest competitor, LivingSocial — talked about a future in which consumers and local businesses could participate in a kind of real-time auction-style marketplace for deals on products and services, so people looking for deals on dinner tonight could survey the offers from local restaurants and pick the ones they wanted, and merchants could fine-tune their offers based on real-time demand. That is one future that Google desperately wants to be part of, and $6 billion probably seems like a small price to pay for a seat at that table. For more on Groupon, please see my GigaOM Pro report.

Related GigaOM Pro content (sub req’d):

• Why Google Should Fear the Social Web


• Lessons From Twitter: How to Play Nice With Ecosystem Partners


• What We Can Learn From the Guardian’s Open Platform

Post and thumbnail photos courtesy of Flickr users Groupon and TechCrunch

Jamie Turner is the chief content officer of the 60 Second Marketer, the online magazine for BKV Digital and Direct Response. He is also the co-author of How to Make Money with Social Media, now available at fine bookstores (and a few not-so-fine bookstores) everywhere.

Given the hundreds of social media tools available, and the thousands of different ways to use them in business, you’d think that getting Fortune 500 companies on board would be a complex and daunting task.

But it’s not. The truth is, there are only five different ways the Fortune 500 use social media. Seriously — just five. And once you know what they are, you can figure out which ones would be most useful for your business.

These five social approaches, though different in many respects, all have one thing in common: Each of the Fortune 500 use them to generate a profit. After all, they’re not using social media just to be social. They’re using it to make money.

In order to make money with social media, you have to set up your campaigns to be measured. And I’m not talking about simple metrics like number of followers or unique page views (although those are important). I’m talking about real metrics like leads generated, prospects converted and profits realized. Those are the kinds of metrics that enable you to track the success of your social media campaign on an ROI basis. And when you’re tracking your social media campaign on an ROI basis, you’re making your CFO happy (along with your CEO, your CMO and everyone else in your company).

1. Branding

Some companies use social media strictly as a branding tool. Typically, this means running a YouTubeclass="blippr-nobr">YouTube campaign that (hopefully) gets a lot of buzz around the water cooler. While using social media strictly as a branding tool might be considered “old-school” these days, it can still generate some positive sales growth.

Take Toyota as an example. Its YouTube mini-series featuring the Sienna Family has generated more than 8.3 million impressions. Those are not passive impressions fed to consumers during a TV commercial break, but engaged views attained through social sharing. When people share your commercial with their friends, they’re reinforcing your marketing for you, and it’s the best kind.

Of course, one of the most successful campaigns of this type is the Old Spice YouTube campaign that has more than 140 million impressions and, according to Nielsen, helped sales increase 55% in three months, and a whopping 107% during the month of July alone. Part of what made this campaign successful was that Old Spice set it up so it could quickly respond to viewers’ comments about the videos. By engaging the viewers in the videos, Old Spice improved the stickiness of the campaign and, best of all, enhanced the viral nature of it.

2. e-Commerce

If you can sell your product or service online, then you’ll want to drive people to a landing page on your website where they can buy your goods. How can you accomplish this? Just do what Dell does. It tweets about special promotions for its folloers on Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter. Right now, the DellOutlet account has 1.5 million followers. If you crunch some hypothetical but fair numbers on the back of an envelope, Dell’s ROI might look something like this:

DellOutlet followers: 1.5 million

DellOutlet followers who actually see the promotional Tweet: 50,000

Followers who click on the link in the Tweet: 500

Prospects who purchase a computer based on the Tweet: 50

50 purchases x $500 computer = $25,000

That’s $25,000 in revenue just for sending out a tweet. Not bad for a day’s work. Of course you’ll have to put in the effort to build your Twitter community in the first place, but those are certainly resources well spent, given the potential return.

3. Research

Many companies are using social media as a tool to do simple, anecdotal research. Sometimes, this involves building a website that engages customers in a dialogue. Starbucks has done this famously with MyStarbucksIdea.com. When visitors land on the site, they’re asked to provide new ideas to Starbucks on ways to improve the brand. Visitors can share ideas, vote on which ideas they like the best, discuss the ideas that have been submitted, and even see the results of their suggestions in action.

But you don’t have to build an entire website to keep tabs on your customers’ needs. Got a blog? Great. Ask your visitors to leave suggestions in your comments section. Have an e-newsletter? Terrific. Use the tools from ConstantContact, ExactTarget or MailChimp to include polls and surveys in your e-newsletter. Active on Twitter? Wonderful. Then use Twtpoll, SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo to drive people to a survey page on these sites.

The bottom line is there are plenty of ways to keep your finger on the pulse of your community’s needs, using social media tools that are readily available to both you and the Fortune 500.

4. Customer Retention

A good rule to remember is that it costs three to five times as much to acquire a new customer as it does to keep an existing one. Given that, wouldn’t it be smart to use social media as a tool to keep customers loyal and engaged? That’s what Comcast and Southwest Airlines do. They communicate via Twitter, class='blippr-nobr'>Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and other social media platforms to help solve customer service issues.

When Frank Eliason at Comcast first noticed that people were making comments about his company on Twitter, he probably wasn’t very happy. After all, if you’re going to Tweet about your cable company, it’s likely a complaint. So Frank took things into his own hands and started Tweeting back to the disgruntled customers. His tweets offered suggestions and tips on how to fix the problems people were having with their services.

Research has indicated that if you take a customer in a heightened state of anger and help them out, they’ll actually become brand advocates. In other words, they start promoting your brand to others because you reached out to them and helped them at a time of need.

That’s what happened with Frank and Comcast. Customers went from being disgruntled to being brand advocates — all because they were pleasantly surprised when Frank reached out to them via Twitter and helped solve their problems.

If you find yourself reading negative comments in the blogosphere about your brand, don’t shy away from them. Engage with them. You’ll be surprised how effective it can be.

5. Lead Generation

If you’re having difficulty selling your product or service online, you may want to invest in a social B2B lead generation strategy. At my company, we use social media to drive prospects to our online magazine for marketers. When prospects get to the website, they can read a blog post, watch a 60-second video or download a white paper. Once we gather their contact information, we (gently) re-market to them by reminding them of all the great results our partner generates for its clients.

This hub-and-spoke system works like a charm. Why? Because B2B and professional service firms are often sold based on a relationship. Much of the decision process is based on a vendor’s reputation and trustworthiness. What better way to build trust than by providing helpful, useful information to the client prospect via social media?

Remember, when you’re using this hub and spoke system, you don’t want to limit yourself to just the big five (class='blippr-nobr'>LinkedInclass="blippr-nobr">LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and MySpaceclass="blippr-nobr">MySpace). You’ll also want to use e-mail marketing, speeches, e-books, webinars, blogs, videos and other social media tools to build trust and awareness.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- 5 Ways to Sell Your Expertise Online/> - Why Your Business Should Consider Reverse Mentorship/> - 35 Essential Social Media & Tech Resources for Small Businesses/> - 6 Ways to Score a Job Through Twitter/> - 4 Misconceptions About Marketing in Social Games

For more Business coverage:

class="f-el">class="cov-twit">Follow Mashable Businessclass="s-el">class="cov-rss">Subscribe to the Business channelclass="f-el">class="cov-fb">Become a Fan on Facebookclass="s-el">class="cov-apple">Download our free apps for Android, iPhone and iPad

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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Breaking <b>News</b>: Watch A Gigantic Looping Solar Prominence

The Solar Dynamics Observatory never fails to deliver absolutely stunning images from the Sun: as of 18:49 UT today, the above picture is what the Sun looked like in the ultraviolet spectrum. The prominence that you are seeing looping ...

Foxconn to ship iPad 2 by the end of February 2011

Foxconn Electronics' (Hon Hai Precision Industry's) plants in Shenzhen, China have recently been notified they will ship Apple's iPad 2 within the next 100 days with initial shipments to reach 400000-600000 units, according to sources ...

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 &amp; Lens Profile Downloader <b>...</b>

Adobe releases Lightroom 3.3, ACR 6.3 & Lens Profile Downloader: Adobe has released Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. These are final versions of updates that were originally posted as 'release candidates' ...

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