Why Invest in Social Media Marketing?

Social media gives business owners powerful tools for reaching (and more importantly interacting with) thousands of prospects and clients. However, you need a strong business strategy and knowledge of online marketing before these tools will deliver measurable return on investment.

Collecting the right data, and analyzing it with a view towards long-term success, is just part of the strong business mind-set we bring to every client project.

Here are some social media marketing questions to answer before getting started:

· What exactly am I trying to accomplish with social media and why?

· What are the most pressing challenges that prospective and current customers face, and how can I help them overcome these?

· What are the most effective delivery tools for my messages?

· How can I build enduring relationships and turn strangers into lifetime customers?

An effective social media strategy is all about the big picture and creating a plan. What needs to be accomplished, and why. Once the strategy is in place, we’ll help you move on to the tactics – the where, when, and how – that will implement your strategy.

Your website is the most critical part of your social media strategy. If it isn’t ready to convert browsers into customers, with well-written, easy-to-navigate, attractive pages that are optimized so the search engines that can help potential customers find you, then that should be addressed before you invest heavily in a social media campaign.

Selecting Your Social Media Targets

Whether you’re active in social media or not, you already have a presence there. Customers, employees, suppliers, vendors, and even competitors are already talking about you on social media sites like Facebook, Yelp, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+.

Does your business need to be on all of these social media platforms? Maybe – maybe not. It depends on the demographics of your audience. Talking with a professional social media marketing company that can develop recommendations for your company will help you achieve your specific goals. Keep in mind there is no one-size fits all social media marketing.

In fact, 49% of web users will make a purchase this month based on recommendations they received through a social media site.

How do you Evaluate your Social Return on Investment (SROI)?

Evaluate SROI as a tool for measuring a much broader concept of value. SROI incorporates social, environmental, and economic costs and benefits into decision making and helps you readjust your strategy and tactics to meet your goals.

Counting the numbers is the easy part. Website visitors, blog links, Twitter mentions, Facebook fans and LinkedIn and Google+ connections are all numbers worth measuring.

Numbers and analytics only tell half of the story. There’s also the question of sentiment – what percentage of the comments about your brand are positive instead of negative? Is your social media marketing effort pushing that sentiment needle in a positive direction?

Your SROI – social return on investment – has to go a step further, and connect the results to your bottom line. Again, this is where a professional social media marketing company can really help your brand / business connect with its customers.

Brian Walt | Marketing Expert