Measuring Social Media ROI: The Basics

Measuring Social Media ROI is a top-of-the mind subject for most business owners. Today I want to talk to you about the basics of measuring your social networking followers.

There are two important things that you have to have in place before we can calculate the strength of your social networking followers. First, you must have some kind of call to action on your website that entices people to become a lead/customer for your product or service. This can be any form (preferably on your website) where people can submit information for you to contact them directly. Or, if you sell a product, purchase your product directly.

Secondly, it is important that you have some kind of tracking system in place that allows you to see how many visitors came to your website, how many of them answered your call to action, and where these people came from. Without this, you have to rely on communication and word of mouth to get a rough idea on how many people found you on social networking websites. I use Google's free Analytics service, which does all of that for me. Once you have those two things in place, you'll be able to do basic calculations on how many active followers you have.

How to measure a follower's value

o Look at the total number of clicks to your website from each social media platform in a month, and divide that by the number of posts you made. This gives you an average visit per post.
o Look at page views per visit, time spent on site and visitor paths to identify what percentage of social media visitors become leads or customers.
o Using these metrics, you can find out how many of your social networking followers actually show interest in your company, or, actually purchased from your company.

Now, this is a very basic way of calculating the monetary ROI (return on investment) of your followers, but also gives you a better idea on how many of your followers are interested in furthering their relationships with you, and your business. While you're doing these calculations, it's also not a bad idea to see how many people commented on or interacted with your social networking page. These people should not be forgotten when calculating the traffic generated on your website, the reason being is that most social networking websites publish a link to your profile on that person's profile when they comment on your business page. This can spark viral marketing, and possibly gain you more customers.

ROI measurements are another subject that goes very deep with social networking, and is too much to cover in this small report. Another important avenue to look into is the importance of customer retention for your company. You need to measure the effect that customer retention has on your company (what will losing a customer cost your company). Since social networking is a perfect way to build and establish relationships (and help people with their problems) you can use these new online measures as a form of customer service. Finally, you want to measure how many people are now actively talking about your community online, or interacting with you online. To get the highest ROI of social media marketing, you will have to measure each of these three avenues, based on your company's numbers.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5971655

Tips for effective Facebook Marketing

Yes, everyone is aware of what Facebook is and what all can be done using this social media giant. Every now and then new features and new dimensions are added to it which is of great use to its users across nations.  Facebook over time has emerged as an important social media domain and finds more users other than any other platform.

Owing to the above mentioned fact more and more brand managers are using the platform for promoting their product and service. As we all can see the the count of brands in the market have increased and subsequently the competition as well, it is very important that all managers carry out effective social media marketing strategies to remain at the top.

Here are some tips to enable effective Facebook marketing,

1.   Purpose of creating a page
A Facebook page is like the identity of a brand on the platform. It is always created keeping in mind a set of goals and patterns. It is important to understand why the page is created and what benefits or insights will be drawn from the brand’s Facebook page. When a demarcated purpose is highlighted it becomes easy for brands to perform and look out for their course of action.

2.      Segment, Target and Position
Each one of us is aware of the fact that Facebook has the largest user interface and that it is the most widely used platform by people. It is very important to know a brand’s target market before further planning and execution of marketing strategy is done. Segmenting your own target group and then knowing effective tools to reach out to them enables a brand manager to cater to the needs of the people in a way that provides better results. Positioning the product comes at a later stage but is as effective and as important as the other two are.

 3.      Creative and Attractive

In order to lure the segmented and targeted audience towards your Facebook page and your brand one needs to ensure that the page has some value to it. It is to be ensured that the page has certain captivating factors that can help a brand retain the users that come to the page. Creativity is a factor that is required in all the stages of marketing a product as it plays the most important role and enables users to find something worthwhile in the brand.

4.      Use Custom Tabs
Custom Tabs are certain applications that are used on Facebook which provide better marketing results and establishes easy connections with the users. Custom tabs refer to the addition of tabs like Contact Us tab, Website tab, Welcome tab and many more that are added as links to the pages and ensure easy communication with the clients. This also adds a touch to the creative aspect of the page and gives many added advantages.

 5.      Facebook Campaigns

Social Media Marketing is incomplete without the running an impressive Facebook campaign that could change the fate of a brand tremendously. The campaigns should be according to the brand, the one that best suits a brand and is relevant enough. Photo Contests, Video Contests, Polls, Voting all are a part of effective campaigns that provide not only great insights but are the most innovative and useful way of reaching and targeting our audiences.

 6.      Daily frequent posts

Another method and way of making the Facebook page work is by the daily post and status updates that are done and that add to the constant interaction between the user and the brand. These need to be relevant and at the same time good for the users to feel an urge to like/comment and build a rapport with the brand.