The ROI of Social Media Marketing

You’re an entrepreneur.

Always have been. Always will. It’s something that’s in your blood. You live and breathe your business. You know the ins and outs of your company. You know all your numbers, analytics, and KPIs by heart.

You track every dollar you spend and know what kind of return to expect. You don't like to guess, you like to know.

Now, you’ve joined the social media revolution. And you might be wondering what the return on investment is for social media.

But that’s not what social media is about.

Social Media is more than a way to advertise your business. It’s a way for you to connect with your audience on a personal level and build lasting relationships.

Social Media gives you a place to build your own tribe of passionate followers and gives you a way to communicate with them 1-1.

Social Media is advertising, community building, influencer outreach, and customer service all blended together. If you go in with a ‘dollar in, dollar out’ mindset, you’re missing the point.

Sure, you can track clicks to your website, derive sales from that and divide that by the money you’ve spent. But you’d only be tracking the tip of the iceberg. You’d only be telling the first chapter of the story.

Social Media isn't about selling. It's about connecting with people and building relationships.

What’s the ROI of a brand ambassador who passionately spreads the word about you to friends and family? What’s the value of an influencer endorsing your company to all their adoring fans? It’s something you can’t measure. Something that’s invaluable.

Everyone has heard about ‘word of mouth’ marketing. We all know it’s the most effective form of marketing.

But outside of creating a product/service that people fall in love with, most of us don’t even consider word of mouth in our marketing plans.

We just leave that up to our customers and hope they tell their friends. But social media gives you a way to engineer word of mouth.

If you’re willing to invest time and money up front, and you’re willing to be patient you can actually create word of mouth out of thin air.

Social media is word of mouth marketing on steroids.

It gives people a platform and opportunity to talk about your brand and share it with their friends. All in a couple of clicks.

If you’re smart you can create a campaign around a hashtag where people can talk about your brand across platforms, and share their thoughts about your business in one cohesive feed.

If you want to create more word of mouth about your business you have two options. Invest in a gorilla marketing campaign in the hopes of going viral. Or you can invest in social media.

The best thing about marketing on social media is that you own your channel. It’s like having your own radio station or TV channel that people can tune into.

While Search Engine Marketing, pay per click, commercials and other paid media, you’re renting the channel for a brief amount of time, you own your social media platform.

It’s organic. Something that you can build, grow and invest in over a long period of time. Something you can count on 5 years down the line.

Social media is a way to earn your audience's attention instead of trying to buy it.

So, you tell me. What’s the ROI of owning your own channel? The ROI of connecting with your audience on a personal level? The ROI of more word of mouth?

It’s impossible to measure. Too uncertain. Too variable.

But there’s one thing that is certain. If you’re trying to build a brand in the 21st century, social media is by far the most effective way to do it.

What do you think? Should you worry about ROI when it comes to social media?