How to make social media a long term prospect

In all relationships, whether they are personal, professional or commercial, people need to feel valued. This is human nature.

You can’t always count on the value, but in branded worlds you can invest in those relationships and social networks are an effective way to do just that.

For social media therefore, ROI needs to be reflected in terms of buzz and engagement, not solely or even primarily as revenue or sales leads. How many people are talking about your product or service or brand?

More positive buzz will eventually lead to financial gain and advocacy, but it’s not a linear relationship, it’s more fractal.

Opportunity

Rather than focusing on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Facebook or the number of fans on Mixi, we should perhaps consider looking at how it helps to shift the most important business key performance indicators, such as brand value, sales, profits, as well as customer retention and satisfaction rates.

To do this effectively, one needs to give a social media strategy time. Like a good wine, it needs to breathe. In doing so, organisations will be able to look at their overall business performance, as well as the performance of their social media campaigns over the duration. 

Many FMCG websites are strategically geared to encourage and drive sales, and some provide true brand engagement. Their social media strategies should reflect this, and the opportunity is not to mirror their site’s objectives but rather consider how to compliment it. Together, on site rather than off, the results will be tangible and powerful.

Social marketing works best when brands engage with their audience.

Generally, it is too easy these days to throw up a Twitter or Facebook campaign anywhere in the world, churn through some money with little or no results, and say that advertising on social networks does not work or deliver. Not true.

Social marketing works best when brands engage with their audience. And to do that often takes time. After all, in the real world for example, human friendships and trust are often not established immediately on introduction or first meet. Human behaviour and social etiquettes will always define the depth of relationships human beings pursue and crave, and online is no different.

Ten ways to measure

There might well be many ways of measuring success, and these depend on an organisation’s original objectives and goals, with each criteria dialled up or down dependent on the strategy, as well as mindset.

Measurement legacy often leads to complacency, where the criteria for success 12 months ago no longer track to changing consumer behaviours, technology and brand objectives. Hence, ten ways to measure the effects of social media campaigns include, brand metrics, customer engagement (and content), sales, leads, traffic, interaction, search marketing, PR, retention and profits.

Customer engagement

Many marketers get caught up on driving traffic that they forget the first couple of points. As mentioned earlier, I believe that truly successful social media marketing is in essence customer engagement.  

By listening to customers, and letting them know that you are listening and learning and providing value through the conversations, brands can improve their business, their products, and their levels of service. The critical by-product of this is greater customer loyalty and advocacy, which is a brand’s Holy Grail.