Guide to Measuring ROI on Social Media
Conveying the value of your social media services lies in your ability to prove a measurable return on your client’s investment. The best way to do that? A thoughtful strategy rooted in analytics! Read on for three fool-proof ways to ensure you’re delivering ROI as a social media manager.
SOCIAL MEDIA ROI TIP #1: ESTABLISH SET KPIS
In order to prove to clients that you providing a return on their investment, you first have to identify what they’re hoping to get out of your services. Afterall, social media analytics mean nothing to clients if they aren’t tied to the goals they’ve set for their business.
Before creating a social media strategy, ensure goals are clearly established and communicated, so that you can align each one with a relevant social media KPI. For instance: if your client’s goal is to increase brand awareness, you’ll want to pay extra attention to social media metrics like reach, shares, and follower count. If their goal is fostering their current community, on the other hand, you may formulate your strategy around maintaining and increasing engagement metrics like comments, likes, saves, and shares.
At Homemade Social, we collect this information from clients during onboarding in our new client questionnaire. This makes it easy for our internal team to know what goals we’re striving for from the start.
SOCIAL MEDIA ROI TIP #2: TRACK AND REPORT CONTENT PERFORMANCE ROUTINELY
Once your social media KPIs are established, track social media analytics on a routine basis to monitor your content’s performance based on the metrics deemed most relevant to your goals. Take note of what is performing well and continue doing more of it. Similarly, take note of what is not performing as well as anticipated and brainstorm ways to make it better.
View analytics as your chance to convey your value and worth as a social media manager. So in addition to providing strategy optimization recommendations, be sure to give yourself a client-facing pat on the back by calling out any wins relevant to their goals.
SOCIAL MEDIA ROI TIP #3: CREATE A HOLISTIC MARKETING STRATEGY
Let’s be real: organic social media is only one piece of the conversion funnel. While it can definitely help increase sales, the primary return brands should expect to see from organic social media is related to more top of funnel initiatives, like increasing brand awareness or fostering a relationship with their current audience.
So if your client isn’t seeing the social media ROI they were anticipating (usually when this happens, it’s sales related), ensure they have a holistic marketing strategy in place that leverages multiple channels in tandem in order to accomplish the brand’s established goals. With a holistic marketing strategy, each channel (ie organic social media, paid advertising, email marketing, influencer marketing, web design, etc.) complements one another in order to further move consumers down the marketing funnel.
For instance, a social media manager’s primary goal may be to reach a large audience and pique enough interest that users feel compelled to take an action (ie joining an email list or heading to the website) where further nurturing or a conversion can occur. What actually happens once a user lands on the website, however, is outside of the social media manager’s control.
Here’s what we mean: while a user may love the content they’re seeing on social media, they may ultimately refrain from making a purchase if they haven’t been warmed up enough to your brand or they land on your site and encounter one or more of the following:
Products priced too high or low for the perceived value
Negative reviews
Poor or undesirable product design/quality
Poor website design (ie not compelling or hard to navigate)
Poor website copy
Slow loading time
Complex checkout process
And more!
If your site has any of the above, don’t expect your social media manager (or email marketer, influencer manager, etc.) to make a miracle happen on their own. Conversion is a team effort that requires a holistic marketing strategy!
We hope you enjoyed this blog post on measuring ROI on social media! Want more organic social media analytics tips? Check out our latest course on social media analytics, Decode Your Data. Enjoy!
xx,
The Homies
SOCIAL MEDIA ROI FAQs:
What is social media ROI?
Social media ROI, or return on investment, measures the value a business generates from social media efforts.
What are some effective strategies to improve social media ROI?
To improve social media ROI, consider strategies such as creating a holistic marketing strategy, targeting the right audience, creating engaging content, optimizing social media profiles, measuring and analyzing results, and leveraging data-driven insights to refine your campaigns.
Are there any tools available to measure social media ROI?
Yes, there are various tools and platforms that can help you measure social media ROI. Some examples include Google Analytics, Shopify, and social media analytics platforms like Later.
