General Motors determined their ROI from blogging by researching how much it would cost to reach the same number of people using regular advertising channels.
If you skipped the whole ROI thing for a moment it is still worth messing with for what it can do for your business.
You can save money and increase customer satisfaction!
You can increase awareness of your products!
Of course the first step is setting goals!
You create a map that will allow you to reach those goals. A dot to dot to make sure you don’t vary off path. You’ll then set up activities that will allow you to reach each dot on you map.
But let’s look at everything social media can do as a whole.
If you’ve got some negative news coming out about a product recall, your goal should be to protect your brand reputation. The measure of success would NOT be an increase in sales or profits, but rather an increase in positive reputation or a reduction of negative search results.
Social media can not only help to improve positive search results, but it can also reduce angry phone calls to customer service.
Something as simple as signing up for a single social network to do a few tests should NOT be left to chance. To get something out of anything we first have to set goals that can be measured. Otherwise it’s like going on a trip with no directions and no idea of where you are going. But somehow you believe you are making great time.
- Social Media Enhances Brand Awareness
- Social Media Increases the Reach of Your Brand Message.
- Social Media Increases Online Conversations About Your Brand.
- Social Media can Increase Consumer Preferences for your Brand Over your Competitors.
- Social Media Increase your Brands Online Appeal.
So what do we get out of social media?
- An increase sales.
- Decrease in cost of doing business
- An improving customer satisfaction level.
Social media marketing allows you to enhance brand awareness. Enhance the image of your product in the market.
Social media allows you to look at your business and product from the eyes of your customers, partners, vendors and everyone else. Social media marketing can build a more positive brand and increase the public’s awareness of you.
Protecting your brand’s reputation should be important enough to get you to set aside 15 minutes a day even if there was no increase in sales.
Let’s say you’ve got a business selling links.
Google does an update and all your clients see a drop in rankings. The internet goes wild calling for you to be beheaded. But lucky for you, you’ve already got all your social media channels in place.
All you need to do is figure out how you’ll respond to the crisis. Once you do that you are able to listen to the online conversations and amplify any positive claims or conversations. You are also able to use the social media sites to protect your reputation in the search engines.
Social media marketing can increase positive online mentions of your brand and decrease negative online mention.
Building and maintaining relations with various audiences in the public will reflect positively upon the company, organization, or person doing the building. Social media aligns with public relations.
Social media marketing allows you to build relationships directly with your customers, groups, organization and bloggers with influence and reach. Social media removes the filters between the company and its customers. Social media marketing allows the company to build a community of loyal customers, raving fans, and product evangelist. With loyal fans and advocates rushing to defend your company when it is criticized it moves you into a new playing field.
Although enhancing customer service should be the most important reason for using social media marketing. It’s pretty simple really!
How can I help you?
- Social media can reduce calls to your call center, and boost word-of-mouth marketing.
- Social media marketing can increase your customer satisfaction levels.
- Social media marketing can Increase positive online mentions of your company.
- Social media marketing can decrease negative mentions.
- Social media marketing can help with research and development.
- Social media marketing can be used for market research.
Social media can generate new product ideas for your company and help improve your product in your current product lines.
And yes, social media marketing can drive leads and sales.
But it’s not some mystical magical by product of joining a conversation. You have to set goals and objectives around using social media. And measure them.
Social media marketing can and has generated leads and sales from blog visitors. Social media marketing increases conversion rates. Social media marketing increases repeat business.
When you add marketing to social media it becomes all about business!
We are no longer experimenting. Social media professionals are helping businesses grow. A few years ago social media hit the marketplace all hyped up about nothing. Social media marketers wanted everyone to just hold hands. Somehow this became the idea for social media marketing.
That is what will not work!
We have to make money. The new consumer requires us to engage and talk but knotted up in that conversation has to be a dollar sign.
Social media marketing becomes realistic, actionable, and measurable when you approach it strategically.