Social media plays a huge part in getting customers to notice and engage with your business or brand. Being able to clearly see what works and what doesn’t within your social media strategy. The importance of Return on Investment (ROI) is underemphasised by many businesses when in fact, it can make or break the success of your business.
Read on for the how and why of measuring ROI for your business.
First of all, what exactly is ROI?
ROI can have a different meaning for everyone, it depends on what represents your return or efforts most accurately. It could be money, time or the resources you are putting forth verse what you gain in return. In most cases, businesses focus on the financial worth of the marketing efforts. It can help you and your business to know what kinds of content or advertisements your customers want to see; what times are optimal for posting
Do you really need to measure your ROI?
Simply put, yes. While some argue that ROI doesn’t completely show the value of your business’ social media efforts, that doesn’t mean it isn’t a valuable measure of your success online. To reach your customers in today’s market, you more or less must be using social media platforms. Social Media spending has increased exponentially in recent years and while the majority of business are on social media, a lot don’t measure their results; therefore, they don’t if their efforts are working effectively for their business.
How can you measure your social media ROI? Use these 3 simple steps:
1. Define your social media objectives or goals
This may seem too obvious, but a lot of businesses overlook having specific goals for the social media accounts. Not having clear objectives can cause a lack of direction and motivation, as well as damaging your brand’s voice. This can make the customer recognition of your brand rather negative. Distinct social media goals need to be included in your overall strategy, with budgets and time frames accordingly. In previous blogs, we covered how and why setting smart marketing goals is important, so check it out here for a more detailed approach.
2. Keep track of your goals
Now that you have set goals for your social media, it is so important that you keep track of them (otherwise, what’s the point?). One of the best ways to do this is through Google Analytics. You can establish goals from step one into the analytics platform, and whether it’s conversions, subscriptions, or brand awareness; Google can track it for you.
3. Record your social media expenses
Tracking your expenses is not just limited to financial output for the ad sets or promotions. The man-hours you put into social media planning can be extremely time-consuming. Your time is valuable, so be sure to track these appropriately! Content can cost money if you need to outsource the job to a copywriter. There are also costs involved with software used for social media planning, scheduling, and posting. While there are free accounts around, depending on your needs it can be worth the splurge for extra perks (i.e. automation tools).
Businesses put a lot of focus on the financial aspects of everything, social media included. So while we have covered the steps of ROI measurement, it would be naïve to ignore other metrics as well, most of which can confirm or explain your ROI results (which is great to tell the boss).
If you want to know more about the ways you can get more traffic to your website, such as generating more leads to your Facebook or Chilli’s helpful tips for marketing your business, check out our latest blogs and our comprehensive Strategic Marketing Guide.
