Current business paradigms are changing at a fast rate. The input from alternate avenues has resulted in newer calculations for business plans. As a business investor, you would want a return on investment for social media based ventures just like you do on other market strategies. A number of companies have major bets on the ability of social media to generate leads, sales and revenue.
Many analysts are of the belief that it’s vital to give an exact number to the ROI associated with social media. Setting up quantitative goals for such a domain isn’t easy though. In a survey carried out, at least 25% marketing specialists believe that finding marketing ROI is a big challenge in current finance models. However, there are ways you can get an idea on how your investment in social media is paying off.
The first step is creating a social media workflow for each page you generate. This should also include ROIs for blog posts, webinars, cloud computing etc. An automated workflow program and related tools can also be used to increase the effectiveness of calculations, as they assist in cloud deployment.
Tagging your URL will also allow you to find out which campaigns on social media are giving you a higher return. The point of this exercise is that you’ll be able to decide which social media campaigns are worth opting for and which ones need to be revised or ended altogether.
The UMT tags in the URL identify on which social network your content is being promoted. The UMT tag links help in identifying the source of the link.
Another conventional method is to add surveys for your clients. These surveys can let you find out how the customers come to know of your product/service. This info helps in generating strategic points of contact and adding them to your respective ROIs. The number of likes, +1s, retweets, etc. are also ways of generating the numbers.
In terms of social media platforms, Google+ provides both a good social media presence and also calculations for your ROIs. The services from Google are enhanced in the sense that they are good from the SEO perspective as well.
Take Google Authorship as an example. It allows generating content that can increase traffic on your page and also allow better search engine results for those in your circles. It’s also possible to upload an image of the author that is displayed alongside the result, which enhances the credibility of the information link.
The entire point of explaining this is that marketing pundits think that social media is a panacea, but the opposite is the case. The principles of dedicated approach and trial based working are necessary for generating leads. Furthermore, the nature of the results may be indirect and not immediate. Such a non-conventional entity requires appropriate calculations that allow easy assessment.
The ROI is a fundamental value for showing which strategies work. As an investor or business owner, quantifying these values are significant. Ignoring them may lead to loss of capital, or unnecessary use of marketing budget.
