3 Things Only Experts Know About Boosting Social Media ROI

You’re likely to find that the vast majority of long-lived businesses share one thing in common, regardless of product, price range, or industry.

Can you guess what it is?

Fundamentally, these businesses know that to succeed, they need to utilize multiple advertising channels to get the word out about whatever it is they’re selling.

You’ve heard this time and again throughout your whole life: don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

This was true during the industrial revolution, and it’s true today in what you might call the digital revolution; perhaps even more so with how quickly things can change. Any business that wants to survive long-term needs to understand, use, and adapt to a diverse array of marketing channels.

For businesses with an online presence—and let’s be real, that should be everyone by now—this diversification usually comes by way of SEO for organic traffic, SEM for paid ads, and social media, which tends to land somewhere between organic and paid traffic (i.e., even if you don’t directly advertise on social networks, someone still has to put in the effort to maintain your pages).

This is a smart way of doing business because if one marketing channel hits a slump, perhaps through no fault of your own, the others are there to pick up the slack. You have diversification.

If they have this mindset, plenty of business owners have turned to social media as one of their marketing channels. However, achieving a positive ROI with social media (let alone boosting it) can be elusive, especially if it’s not your area of expertise.

If that sounds at all familiar, you’ll want to pay close attention to these three surprisingly simple-yet-effective expert tips on how to boost your social media ROI:

#1 – Go to the Network Your Target Audience Uses

When most business owners hear about having a “social media presence,” they’re likely to think that means creating a page on Facebook and Twitter.

While those platforms are definitely the big players, they’re not the only game in town—other massive social media networks exist, and you might be able to have an easier time reaching your target demographic if you use them.

Consider that Pinterest has primarily a female audience, users of Snapchat tend to be under the age of 24, and LinkedIn is a social network designed for professionals (which, for example, makes it perfect for B2B outreach).

What platform does your target audience use the most? That’s where you want to be.

For more information on this topic, see our blog Where Does Your Business Belong on Social Media?

#2 – Speak Your Target Audience’s Language

What we mean by this isn’t their literal language, i.e., English, Spanish, or German (though knowing that does help!), but rather to develop an understanding of the way your customers speak and, perhaps more importantly, the way they expect you to speak.

For example, take a look at any of the social media profiles for, let’s say, Wells Fargo Bank. The language used will have a remarkably different tone than the profiles for Red Bull, Adidas, or Starbucks.

What you post, when, and how you phrase things will have a significant impact on the consistency of your brand reputation.

#3 – Measure Everything, Or At Least The Most Important Things

Measuring the performance of your advertisements in any other channel is a no-brainer. You need to know how it performed so that you can gauge whether or not the advertisement was a success.

Why, then, do so many businesses invest in poor (or no) metrics for their social media campaigns?

This problem is, by far, the leading cause of low social media ROI. Thinking of every post as an advertisement in and of itself can help social media managers take on the right mindset.

Having a complete understanding of your goals with social media will also help you determine what to measure. Are you trying to generate new leads? Sales? Is your goal to build brand awareness? Provide customer service? These are all important considerations which will greatly improve how you engage with your audience via social media.

Discover More Ways to Boost Your Social Media ROI

If you enjoyed this post and you agree that diversifying your marketing channels is generally accepted to be a pretty smart move, you might want to check out our post 8 Ways Social Media and SEO Work Together to solidify your thoughts on how these channels can work in tandem.

To discover more ways to increase your ROI with Social Media, SEO, or SEM, please feel free to contact us.