It’s slowly getting easier to gauge the return on monies spent through social media advertising. The toughest part up til now has been that the sale just doesn’t always happen right away like it does through organic and paid search advertising methods. The real value in social media advertising is mostly branding, but once that brand has been established, customers are readily willing to part with their cash.
Here’s 8 ways to increase the long term ROIs from your social media marketing campaigns:
1. Images = Retweets on Twitter
Some companies report as much as a 150% increase in the number of retweets their posts get when accompanied by a high-rez image. There are no hard-and-fast rules here, but unless you’re trying to have some fun with your followers, stick to images that directly relate to your tweets.
Obviously, product pictures are a great way to garner interest in physical products. If you’re trying to market and brand yourself, pictures with satisfied clients or while doing something exciting is a great way to get shares in that instance. The picture may be more important to followers than the words themselves, but every time someone retweets you, they’re putting your tweet and accompanying links in front people who might find value in your offerings.
2. Authorship is Easy to Implement
Nobody out there is stating emphatically that Google Authorship holds any real marketing value to companies and/or bloggers. But that’s because it’s still a baby in the Google-sphere. Ask Gary Vanyerchuk and he’ll tell you you’re wasting time you can never get back, as the platform is doomed to an early death. However, it takes less than a minute to link your campaigns to a Google+ profile. Why wouldn’t you, especially if you or members of your team already have a great following?
3. Be Careful What You Promise in Order to get the Sale
I don’t care if we’re talking discounts, giveaways, contest entries or the release of a new product. It’s easy to blast out a tweet or Facebook post offering free widgets to the first 100 people that retweet your post, but guess what? Someone has to foot the bill for global shipping and potential shipping mistakes (if you don’t have a brick-and-mortar store). Even if you’re offering a printed coupon or movie tickets, you still have to deliver on what you promise. If you don’t, your social media will blow up with the kind of attention you don’t want. Remember the Dorito’s Locos Taco fiasco from Taco Bell back in 2012? Anticipate all scenarios before blasting out promises you can’t deliver on.
4. Tweetups, Webinars, and Smartphone Meeting Apps — Face to Face Works Wonders for Branding
Trust is the biggest buying hurdle to overcome on the interwebs. Prospects don’t know you and therefore don’t feel comfortable buying from you. Set up one-on-one or group meetings (ie., Tweetup, Instachat, etc.), schedule a video webinar, set up a FaceTime chat. Whatever platform you choose, make sure you answer as many questions as possible. Be open, be honest and your personalized branding efforts just might pay off.
5. Keep all Your Channels Clean
It’s common for businesses to have more than one social media account on the same platform. And of course, you’re going to have multiple accounts across the board depending on how they impact your ability to market to your unique customer base. Make sure that when you link one social account to the other, that customers are going to get the same impression of you on your Twitter account as they do on your Facebook fanpage. This instead of trying to fit in with a certain crowd of users at the expense of coming across as a phony-bologna lying marketing type.
6. Use Tools and Not Just Free Ones Either
You can burn up a lot of time and money trying to be a one-person show. Even a small business may not have the human capital necessary to schedule a week’s posts in advance, set up retweets, and monitor comments to make sure all questions and concerns are dealt with in a professional manner. Social media tools make up for lack of resources, free up your time for developing even better content, and allow you to track your ROI with less stress involved.
7. Don’t Get Sketchy With Native Advertising Content
You know, when you post an article or video under the guise of organic content, but it’s actually just a discreet way of promoting a product, to which the links are posted somewhere within said content? Make sure the content is fun, informative and entertaining, rather than resembling an Acai Berry blogpost from 2007.
8. Ask for Feedback
It’s rare to find a pizza shop owner who’ll ask if you like their pizza or not. They just want your money and don’t want any hassles. But social media is geared toward engagement. Why wouldn’t you ask for feedback about your content, the services you provide, or the quality of the physical products you deliver? This is your opportunity to find out what’s working and what isn’t. Use it before you lose it!
Bonus: If it Ain’t Working, Change it!
Would you waste money, time and effort putting brand new tires on a car when your mechanic has told you the engine could blow at anytime and that the carpet is the only thing keeping the driver’s seat from falling on the pavement? Of course not. Don’t waste your money doing as Einstein famously quipped: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
Don’t get stuck in the hum-drum of complacency or the competition will eat you alive.
Main Image Credit: Social Fresh/Flickr
