A beast feared by all – Social Media RoI

What do we write about Social Medi RoI that hasn’t been written before? Right from what is to why is it important – the concept has been well explained across the internet. Then why do we still throw our hands up in the air after every campaign or even a post for that matter? In spite of the specific data, why do we still not know if our social media initiatives are generating RoI?

A few years ago, we ran a Father’s Day campaign for one of the start-ups I worked with – a well sketched campaign with a decent gratification. By the end of it, we had 16 new followers on Twitter and absolutely no results on Facebook. We were disdained.

Now remember, we’re talking about a fairly new start-up functioning within a niche. So, when I think about it now, the results seem apt. In spite of the big ticket campaigns, our contest, managed to reach out to our TG, created engagement, and earned us a small but active chunk of followers.

Coming back to my first question – why do we still fail to decode RoI on Social Media? Well, brands and agencies have decoded the concept well, parrot learnt in in-fact; they just have failed or rather wrongly applied it to our business.

RoI on social efforts depends on what your business goals are and how your social media initiatives support those business goals; for a brand like Maggi it might mean reinforcing their users’ faith and love. The instant noodle brand leads the market in terms of sales and brand recall, what they need now is a consistent engagement to keep this up. A stable client relationship would be their RoI.

In contrast, for a brand like Furtados (a music instrument shop in Mumbai) it would mean bringing that one extra lead to their store. Furtados is a niche brand and every sale and footfall matters to them, making their RoI different from that of Maggi’s.

The conclusion here would be that RoI on your Social Media efforts is fairly misunderstood and if employed correctly can help you take your business to all new heights. There are a few things you could do to measure and utilize RoI on social media.

ROI on social media has to tie back to and support your business goals – making it different for every company.

Get off the fantasy land

Every single post you publish may not go viral and neither will you see your revenues doubling overnight. Social media will generate a combination of tangible and subjective RoI. Also, you need to be clear about your goal from social media. Once you know what you want to achieve, you can start setting targets and tracking performance and measuring your ROI. Calculate the cost of your social media efforts and then set expectations for RoI accordingly.

Edit, edit, and edit

Unlearning and relearning is the new way of learning. Sometimes, you will have set realistic and practical Social Media goals and yet aren’t able to achieve. Many a times you will achieve it and figure out this is not what your business needs.

This is the part where you revisit your strategies, see what’s working for your brand, what your audience expect from you and make changes. Listen sharply, use analytic tools to measure your performance. Monitor how your strategy is performing and keep updating according to the need of the hour

Educate yourself

Social media, if used effectively can help you successfully support your business goals. You will need to set targets, track performance and measure outcome and periodically check whether you’re on track.

Educate yourself to understand use this concept better. Register for Connect via Hootsuite, scheduled on Wednesday, September 07, 2016. It is a free online social media conference that will share a lot of great insights.

The only way to achieve and make the most out of Social Media RoI is to not fear it. Your social media initiatives will pay off. Be smart. Be consistent.