ROI From Social Media? How Do You Manage That?

by Natalie @BubbleJobs

If you ask any business why they are using Social Media, they will usually have a very specific reason. They might want to inform potential customers about the services they offer or the products that they sell. They might want to identify potential clients on a much wider scale than is usually possible through traditional marketing methods. But whatever the reasoning or whatever the Social Media campaign they all share one common aim, and that’s to gain a real, genuine return on investment (ROI).

Social Media is considered to offer more opportunity for marketing ROI, because it costs far less to market your products and services through Social Media than it does to use traditional marketing methods, such as radio advertising or flyers. But, how do you measure your ROI from your Social Media Marketing campaign?

Image courtesy of Hetemeel

First, I have another question. Do you know which Social Media site (Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn) makes your business the most money? If you do, do you know why? Here’s my view.

Twitter tends to be more effective for those businesses that offer services, as it’s easier to get your services / message in front of a larger potential audience using specific keywords or hash tags. Twitter is often indicated as the Social Media site of choice for Social Media marketing because of its search functionality. Anyone on Twitter could find your business through key search terms, even if geographically they are on the other side of the world. Equally, the opportunity for ‘Re-Tweeting’ means that your followers could showcase your message to all their followers, meaning the number of people that see your message is significantly larger than it would be on Facebook or LinkedIn.

Facebook tends to be more useful to those selling physical products. On Facebook you are required to buy into certain brands by becoming a fan of their brand page. As a result, those fans of the Facebook brand page must already have an interest in the brand in order to identify themselves as a fan. Brand pages are only able to share the information about their products with those that have already liked the fan page and have therefore already bought into their brand. This means that their marketing message is not able to adequately reach those that are not already aware of the brand which means it’s much more difficult to pick up new customers through Facebook. The addition of the ‘share’ button on Facebook has now meant that fans of brand pages are able to share the page with others, however, I still believe it’s difficult to have the same reach as a Re-Tweet on Twitter could have.

LinkedIn is heavily branded as being the Social Media site for those looking for a new job. As a result, job boards, recruiters and employers now use LinkedIn nearly every day. It’s widely believed that LinkedIn is a waste of time for Social Media marketing and won’t offer any ROI for anyone that isn’t looking to recruit. However, don’t believe the hype, it’s not only recruiters using LinkedIn. Many companies are using LinkedIn when looking for companies to do business with. Many use LinkedIn as a type of corporate search engine that allows them to identify businesses to potentially work with, but also to identify the correct person within that company to contact in order to do so.

So, the real question is… how much of your valuable time, (and of course money) should you be dedicating to each Social Media site to give you the highest ROI? Some questions you should ask yourself are:

What is the overall goal?
Do you sell products or provide services?
Have you seen any significant, tangible ROI from campaigns you’ve run so far?
If so, which Social Media Site has generated the highest ROI?

Once you have answered these questions, you should be able to identify which Social Media site is best suited to your business and you can divide your time accordingly. I’m not saying that if you identify Twitter as being the most beneficial for your business you should ignore Facebook and LinkedIn altogether. At the end of the day I think it’s important to have a Social Media presence on all platforms, but it does help to know where best to focus your time and efforts.

Anyway, I hope that helps, and don’t forget if you’re a budding Social Media Marketing Manager or a Online Ad Campaign Manager looking for your next Social Media Marketing job. You can always check out the latest Social Media and Online Marketing jobs right here on Bubble.

Natalie

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, online marketing jobs, ROI, Social Media Marketing, Twitter