Social media is an increasingly significant piece in today’s business strategies. Perhaps the biggest concern around the role it plays in driving results for an organization is the ability to measure the Return On Investment (ROI). Often, it can be a rather difficult concept to sell.
Ultimately, social-media marketing aims to drive sales and profit, but the key to a successful social strategy for any business is to fundamentally change the way we think about and measure the ROI.
Ask yourself, “what is the ROI of social media?”. Think about it. What is the return of loyalty, or the impact of trust?
Perhaps the most valuable and impactful purpose of social-media marketing is to build and maintain relationships within your audience; we need to measure the Return On Relationship (ROR: the value of people through social engagement) in order to earn and measure the ROI.
Here are the most important tactics to use in a relationship-building social-media strategy. Each are measurable, attainable, and will ultimately lead to an ROI.
Differentiation
Building a unique, useful, and interesting brand drives margins.
- Acquire a new audience and potential customers through rich, original and unforgettable content.
Authenticity
A genuine presence and brand voice paves the road to loyalty and advocacy.
- Retain loyal customers that advocate for the business by understanding and acknowledging their needs.
Awareness
A well-informed audience equates to revenues.
- Heighten the brand by making sure your audience is always aware.
If you want your brand to stand out, aim for ongoing engagement on social platforms and amplify the customer experience:
- Find the core group of people you want to interact with.
- Look people in the eye digitally; visit individuals’ pages and get to know them.
- Start conversations, don’t just ask questions.
- Communicate authentically; don’t simply post content and expect link clicks, impressions, or conversions.
- Genuinely listen to what your audience has to say and adjust content accordingly.
- Lastly, empower people to share, because PEOPLE LOVE TO SHARE; after all, it is social media!
Something to remember is that social media is a facilitator of relationship building; it is not the relationship itself. People want connections, to be engaged and to be valued – not to be sold to or talked at.
