ROI stands for Return on Investment that means, whatever a business invests in, it expects a certain amount of profit or loss on that particular investment which it will eventually incur. 

But the case is completely different when comes to Social Media, the ROI stands out to be a little different. 

Although, to expect real business from social media is not an unrealistic expectation, but there is no guarantee attached to it as well. 

But ROI for social media can have a significant role which one expects eventually out of any sort of marketing and that is Brand Awareness.

A lot of platforms use social media as a PR as well. 

Social media is now the face of any organization where they can craft their own brand image without any additional help. 

The platform itself is so accessible and easy to handle, also people are using it personally hence some knowledge is derived from there as well.

But apart from the important part it plays, it is difficult to understand the ROI which social media actually generates. 

Therefore, we are first going to talk about the importance of Social Media ROI and then how to easily figure out how to measure the same.

Let’s start with how to actually use Social Media for your brand 

Believe it or not, in 2019, your business / brand needs that social media presence.

It could be for the sake of awareness or just customer experience/service, either way, you require your brand to be out there.

1.    Purpose of your Social Media

As discussed, social media ROI could not be just something you could measure in cash or conversions but, a solid media brand awareness and engagement goes a long way. 

There are a lot of brands just there to experiment content, generate brand-relevant content and engage with their consumers. There is also a part in engagement which we can turn as customer service, which is very direct and convenient via social media. 

The point here is that your social media could be anything you want it to be, the only thing which needs clarification is your purpose out of it.

So, you can use both organic and paid medium of social media marketing. If your investments allow you, then you must use a combination of both, time to time, to grow and build a strong community.

The conclusion is that there is no specific strategy to use your social media, hence a permutation & combination works in this case. And even your purpose could change from time to time, according to the requirement of your business.

2.    Set Goals

You need milestones and time allotment to those specific goals. 

What is that your social media should look like when comes to aesthetic, followers and reach, these are the common areas on which your social media get judged. 

But this is what the audience expects, therefore, your goal must be something which is the amalgamation of both as that will help in the growth and fulfillment of your goals as well. 

A piece of advice to keep in mind that your goals are nothing if your community base is to in sync or support of it. Therefore,

• Set realistic goals
• Analyze the market, audience and your competitors
• Keep a tab on the progress of your goals
• Revise and Improvise your strategy time to time as per the trends

3.    Measure your goals

Once goals are set and along with that the campaigns as well, the next thing is to keep those goals in check. 

The only thing you need to check is that if the content you are generating for your brand is fetching you, visitors, reach and popularity or not. You can easily check this by using Google Analytics

4.    Track your social media expenses

As the parameter of ROI is different for social media, the expenses incurred are also different. 

Here we see the time invested, the content generated, tools given utilized and paid campaigns we spent money on. All of these will guide you whether your campaign is generating positive or negative results for your brand. 

After knowing the importance of using Social Media for generating ROI, you understand that a thorough optimization of content is the first thing you need to do on your social media platform. Your goals give you that clarity as to how and when to optimize or revamp your content.

The purpose might get diluted or change in the course of time, but the strategy needs to be changed accordingly as the requirement of a business is never constant and is ever so dynamic.

Though you need to keep a track of what your social media is reaping, how your strategies are panning out but the measure of success is not just in the analytics. 

If you are creating valuable business-client relationships than that is one thing you must consider as profit derived. Other things like, good content and greater engagement between consumers as well, which by the end establishes a community is also a metric you should focus upon.

Now we shall move to how you can actually use Social Media Insights to Analyse your ROI 

Once you have worked thoroughly on your social media to generate a good ROI, the next step is to check to know if the strategies are working or not!

1.    In-app Tools:

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram have their own insight tools where you can check the graph precisely divided amongst different categories like age group, area/location, time, date, and other demographics. You can find these insights which are available in the app itself. 

You can constantly check the graph, compare and conclude what strategy and what point of time was fruitful enough. 

This will make you understand the demographics of your audience and that will impact your strategies effectively in the long run.

2.    Overall engagement:

You will eventually see a lot of traffic and engagement and that can be seen in the form of comments, shares, and people tagging you in their posts.

 If your brand-specific hashtag is used by people in their posts, that is a sign to measure. You can directly search your hashtag and see the amounts of posts under that hashtag.

This indicates directly the interest of your audience and gives you an idea of what sort of creatives or visuals they like to see on your social media platform, indirectly streamlining your thought process with the consumer.

3.    Number of Followers:

The number of following is also a marker that people are actually interested in your profile and that is why they are following from their social media platforms. 

If you thought about it deeply, an individual will only be following you for two reasons, they want an update of your product/service or they are thoroughly entertained by your presentation on social media or both. 

A constant increase is a sign that your target is hitting well in the spot.

4.    Feedbacks

If you see a lot of reviews, either on the website, facebook or through Instagram comments or DMs, it is a sign that people are using your product/service. 

These reviews also help you ‘up your game’ if a consumer comes with a query or grievance.

From a strategic point of view, people are actually thinking you take up their grievances seriously, therefore they are approaching you. 

This means they are having trust in the brand and in your credibility overall. A clean chit as to you having people’s faith in you wholeheartedly.

Few more ways in which you can improve your social media ROI are:

• Use test campaigns when in doubt about a certain idea. It might not work that tremendously, but some amount of traction will be there. If you see not too much engagement you always have the option of pulling out that campaign. Therefore, try multiple campaigns at a time to compare and contrast the content which will tell you the perception of the consumer as well.
• Use tools often to analyze your social media like Google Analytics, Sprout Social and so on, to get a precise analysis, not just guesswork!
• Play with the content and use integrated marketing to have better results.

Social media ROI is not conventional hence the work done to get results out of it as well is different and challenging. 

It is a challenge because it is dynamic and changing every single minute; a new trend comes in and now you have to brainstorm just to use that specific trend to not miss the opportunity. 

Now just brand name is not sufficient, it requires you positioning the brand, proper strategy to bring awareness and solid customer service to ensure satisfaction. 

By Doors Studio

Consult for Social Media Marketing