NOT Your Granddad's Marketing: The ROI of Social Media

One thing that it is a good idea to consider when thinking about the 'value' of social media marketing is that it doesn’t work like this: Social Media Post → Lead → Sale → Calculate ROI of the Post

Social Media is a tool. It’s a part of a content marketing strategy designed to educate your prospects and clients as well as nurture leads. B2B Sales is no longer about cold calls and a hard-warn outbound marketing strategy. The rise of inbound marketing has had a great impact on the way we market. In fact, most prospects are 70% of the way through their buying cycle before they will fill out a form or give their information.

Digital marketing has turned traditional sales upside down. Instead of reaching out to customers, they’re coming to you. You are probably using social media platforms and blogging reguarly, which makes it nearly impossible for you to truly know which blog or social media post(s) were the one that drove the lead back to your site. Think about it: If a prospect reads a few posts or articles a day for fifty days and then decides to fill out a form for more information on the 51st, it’s hard to determine which post should be credited with the sale. Do they all have value? Did they like one blog and dislike another? There’s really no way to know. Tracking clicks and likes can’t tell you whether they’re moving toward contacting you or not. So, as much as it sucks, the actual ROI of each post is unclear.

Because of the grey area that shrouds social media posts and the revenue they generate, there are some more traditional sales and marketing strategists who feel it’s a waste of time. You don’t know what the post is doing to improve your bottom line. If it doesn’t directly lead to a prospect, then what is the point?

As mentioned above, digital inbound marketing has changed the game. That’s a fact no business can afford to overlook. In 2015, the B2B buying cycle begins with the decision maker looking at your brand’s web presence - your website, your blog, your social media posts. They consider the frequency and the value of your posts. They’ll watch videos and vlogs. They might even do a bit of ‘Google stalking’ to find out more about the company, its CEO, and management staff. They’ll follow you on social media, thinking about the posts that you make over the next few days. They’ll use this information to form a decision about whether your services are a fit. Social media plays a large role in this type of lead nurturing.

In addition, posts on social media gives you a huge opportunity to reach beyond prospects, to the community. That’s the real purpose of social networking. Most businesses will tell you that referral leads tend to be some of the most successful. According to a referral marketing study by Hinge Group, 49% of referrals are from those who have experience with your company, as either current or former clients who think that your services would be a good fit for the needs of the business they’re referring to you. What you may not realize is that 46% of referrals come from people who are familiar with your brand by reputation only. They’ve seen you around and heard good things about the services you offer. Social media is arguably the best way to cost-effectively, build brand reputation.

That said, a strategy needs to be put into place. Nobody logs into Facebook or Twitter to be advertised to, they log in to consume media and, believe it or not, socialize. Deploying promotions and value propositions, no matter how good they might be, will only get you so far. Utilizing it as a communication tool to continuously touch and engage your followers is a much more effective approach.

Social media, at the minimum, is a short and sweet way to show off your expertise to a huge audience. If you’re unsure about how to improve your company’s social media marketing strategy, reach out to us!