#DevelopStrategy - Return on Investment in Social Media

As part of our series on Developing Your Marketing Strategy (#DevelopStrategy), we’re covering how to receive a Return on Investment (ROI) in social media.

Unlike a cost-benefit analysis, an ROI cannot be estimated beforehand. This is extremely important to understand when you develop your strategy. Also, ROI is difficult to measure without an investment in advertising since paid ads usually give a considerable amount of analytics, but don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

The first step in developing your ROI marketing strategy involves setting goals for your social media. These goals will need to align with your mission statement. The primary goal needs to state what you hope to accomplish. Beneath that is a set of smaller goals that align with the primary.

Let’s say your primary goal is to build your mailing list full of loyal fans who are excited about your products/services.

Your smaller goals must be S.M.A.R.T. goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time Bound. I like to keep the scope to no more than three smaller goals since your marketing strategy will develop from this. For this article, we’ll create one example: increase social media conversion by 10% in the third quarter.

Note: You can give specific numbers. Gain 10k followers by x date, for instance. These goals are unique to your business model. 

It’s time to develop your strategy. For our 10% social media conversion increase example, we’re going to have a three-pronged attack. 

1. Create a lead magnet. This can be as simple as a discount coupon or as complicated as generating a comprehensive ebook to help your potential clients/customers deal with a real-world problem. 

2. Create buzz using a hashtag campaign that our influencers will be willing to share and participate in. 

3. Share theme-related content on all social media channels that generates buzz for new product or service.

Keep in mind that your strategy may need to be adjusted based on your business and goals.

Now that you have a primary goal, a set of smaller S.M.A.R.T goals and a marketing strategy in place, you’ll need to track your conversions (ROI). You do this through Reach, Traffic, Leads, Customers, and Conversion Rates. Reach includes fans, likes, followers, etc. that you have. The more reach you have, the greater your conversion rates, and is usually trackable inside the social media platform.

Traffic to your site or other URL mentioned in your campaign is another great way to measure ROI. Leads are the number of sign ups you gain through this campaign. Customers are the number of individuals who actually convert from potential to become paying clients. Conversion rates involve tracking the percentage of visitors based on social media platform or promotion campaigns. This tells you which part of your campaign is working and which isn’t.

It’s true that it can be difficult to track ROI when it comes to social media but not impossible. Most of the social media platforms have their own analytics tracking system that will deliver valuable information on what is and isn’t working for you with social.

Take time to develop a winning strategy, keep track of your metrics, and be willing to adapt. These are the keystones to a quality ROI. If you need help working on your social media marketing strategy, the team here at The Social Media Advisor is here for you. Our goal, as always, is to help you #BeAwesome as a business.

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Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+,YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram and the tools to manage them.

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