Social Media ROI - Learning

Social Media ROI Series Part 3: Learning

As technology finds its way into the hearts of businesses, revolutionizing the way we do business, only the fittest brands will survive. Why not be among the fittest?

Those operating businesses, always feel their lungs crushing whenever there is a new player in the market. This is years after the pioneers thought that they had the only keys to the kingdom. Suddenly they realize people are willing to make their own keys and thus doors. Making it clear that the kingdom does not belong to them: and it never did in the first place. More can be said about competition: suffice it to say, it is alive and well.

How do you become fit? You listen. You research. You simply find all information available that will go towards improving the quality of services and products your business offers. It is at the precipice of succumbing to competition that social media comes in.

By supporting your social media team and efforts, you have created a 24/7 focus group which is rich in information. I will go a step further to say, information you will find useful.

Usually when businesses want to find out new information about the newly launched soap for instance, a team armed with questionnaires, surveys and any other research method is deployed to the field. After months of tedious work, long when the product is almost being phased out, results come in. Only to find a swift young blood with superior products at affordable prices. Rather one that meets the needs of his target market. But how, you ask. Social media.

Having a robust social media presence will help you gather this information within a day of dedicated listening. As Peter says, ‘What you’ll find is that what customers reveal when they talk to each other is even more authentic and useful than what they tell you directly.’ Paid focus groups. ‘The opinions they express there are apt to be more honest and less self-conscious than what they would have contributed in the structured, paid environment of traditional focus groups.’ He adds.

Therefore, how is this a return on investment (ROI) you wonder? Well, because you are getting quality useful information within the shortest time possible and at a lesser cost. Compared to the many months you would have spent tasking the marketing team and paying dearly for every piece of information you get in both human resource, time and money.

Here are Edward Stening thoughts on the value of social as a market research channel. “[Our social marketers] know what customers like, they know what they don’t like, what pisses them off, and they know how to get a reaction from them. They know what brand messages will or won’t excite them, what time of year to talk with them,” Stening said. “It used to be random; we’d send out a mailing, do a print ad and a TV ad, and we’d get research nine months after the fact. Now our marketers can get on our social pages and can learn more about their customers from a half an hour of looking through our engagement than what they would have learned from a market research document. We’ve tried to use this as a keyhole into the world of the customer.”

This cements the idea that those on the social media bandwagon stand to reap the rewards of social as a market research channel. By having, a 24/7 focus group, thus ready information, waiting for you to gather and analyse it you increase the chances of your business to compete. However, the key is to listen. Through listening, you learn about these insights, which then form the building blocks for any decision you make aimed at improving the products and or services rendered.

“It is important to leverage social media as a listening post. In one form, it is an extension of customer care, and in another form, it is giving you product feedback and suggestions. If you are engaged with customers, having a dialogue and an ongoing community, you will learn who the posters and the leaders are, and you can start to influence them. You can create calls to action and drive behaviour,” said Winell.

Now what information are you seeking? Go to your social media sites and go through the comments your audience has been posting. Listen. You will find the answers you are looking for. Good luck!

In case you missed my part 1 and 2 series, you can read them here.

Social Media ROI - Marketing Statistics

Marketing Statistics

Glad you could join me in this part 2 series. Hoping that part 1, proved valuable. I would like to hear from you on that. Today, lets look at some other ROI model.

Do you know that most organizations socialize their operations solely for marketing purposes? This happens to be the most important part of any social media program: thus the famous social media marketing discipline.

Then, what should you be on the lookout for? In as far as marketing statistics go brands should measure:

• Reach and awareness
•  Marketing equivalency

Reach and awareness

Find any social media strategy and you are bound to find, increasing brand awareness neatly written down as a goal. Brands (all) want prospective customers to know they exist. And not only that, but their ability to solve their (customers) day-to-day challenges. It is believed that the more people get to see or hear something about your brand, the more the likelihood of them seeking your brand’s services/products when a need strikes.

In the social realm, reach refers to the number of people who have seen your post. And just so you know content is what drives social media reach. Facebook’s algorithm takes your content and feeds it into your fans/followers newsfeed. The quality and freshness of your content determines if it will be seen or disappear into the content abyss.

Assuming that all factors are kept constant, then the total number of people who see your post, equals your social media reach.

This metric is categorised into paid and organic. According to Facebook, organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. Paid reach on the other hand is the total number of unique people who were shown your post because of ads. This implies that when you feel your content or page is not getting the desirable organic reach you set out for: you can always go the paid way.

Unfortunately, a study from Social@ogilvy explained how we are fast approaching the end of organic reach. And, true to their prediction: today before your content gains the traction it needs, you have to really…really offer value in every piece of content. Good news, you have a reason to explain your spend: paid reach.

Be careful not to lose out. Yes, you can get all the reach you want and in return awareness. But will you be pushing the brand goals forward? If you pair reach with key goals such as lead generation, you add value to the whole metric. Thus, reach in themselves do not count for much.

Marketing Equivalency

According to Liveworld, ‘Marketing equivalency ROI should reveal how social media costs compare to those of other media, ideally demonstrating that social achieves its goals more efficiently than other spend.’

In his book, Social Media Handbook, Peter explains how we can determine marketing equivalency. Simply measure your social reach and ask yourself how much money you would spend to reach the same number of people using traditional media.

Consider this: suppose a social media program runs 300,000 to reach 1 million people with 60 million impressions. You might calculate that it would cost 4 million to get the same results through advertising.

This is the value of calculating this equivalency. Once you calculate a campaign’s marketing equivalency ROI, you can go to your CEO and say, “Instead of spending 4 million on traditional marketing on that campaign, let’s spend 300,000 doing it through social channels, save a few million, and increase our overall social media budget!”

At the end of the day, companies are looking to save costs but achieve the same results. If you can prove value through minimal spend then what will prevent the management from giving you all the backing you need?

Brands spend a fortune on ads that might just not be as effective as social media programs. In addition, as all marketing objectives aim to drive more business, then why not be on the lookout for this metric.

What is your biggest challenge in as far as marketing statistics are concerned?