Social Media Marketing mythology

 There is no lack of advice about the role social media marketing should play in a company’s overall marketing plan. Sadly, that advice is often all over the map.

While a number of years have passed since companies first began venturing out into the unexplored country of social media, mixed messages continue to flourish, leaving business owners wondering where to focus marketing resources.

One end of the spectrum proclaims there is no arrival on investment for a business tapping into social media. The other great school of thought dictates your business has no future if it doesn’t have an engaging profile on every obtainable social media network.

The result is that both over-inflating and underestimating social media’s prospective impact on your business means you are not as likely to make a sound investment of resources to gain a reasonable return on your investment.

Your customer demographic isn’t using social media.

This myth should be simple to bust, yet it persists. According to digital marketing resource Digital Marketing Ramblings, best arithmetical estimates as of November 2013 find Facebook with 1.19 billion active users, YouTube boasting its own 1 billion users, Twitter with 215 million active users, and Google+ garnering 300 million active users. In addition, Instagram has concerned about 150 million users while Pinterest claims 70 million.

Digital media research company eMarketer estimates that in total, social media reaches almost one in four people around the globe. perhaps you could have made the argument back in 1993 that your customers weren’t on social media, but this is one easy myth to bust 20 years later.

Approach: Social media marketing should be one out of several components of your company’s general marketing plan. That means even if you are still concerned that your customers aren’t on social media, you can continue to reach them by phone, direct mail, print advertising or other means. 

Fretting that your targeted demographics are not tweeting, posting, or uploading is time and energy wasted. Remember, too, that your existing customer base should not be your only worry. If you are convinced your current clients are eternally offline, consider the chance to target a brand new demographic.

 A staff member needs to be devoted to social media to get results.

Instead, use aggregators like Hootsuite to make posting simpler on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. Then, with the time you save, use Twitter as part of a more concerted marketing effort by hosting a tweet chat. A tweet chat is a kind of live Twitter event, moderated to focus on a number of aspects of one general topic. A hashtag is used to filter all the chatter. Hosting a tweet chat provides your company with the opportunity to build its brand in ways that can’t be accomplished through posts alone.

Social media can take the place of your website.

Because use of social media is a newer marketing tool than beginning a website, there is some confusion over whether social media marketing can take the place of a company website. The answer is, no. The longer answer is, social media may be reasonably new, but email still remains a very powerful tool in your arsenal.

There is no way to measure a social media campaign’s return on investment (ROI).

This is perhaps the myth that seems to outlive and outlast all others. Part of the problem is that there are a lot of social media experts and consultants who may be extremely knowledgeable about social media networks, but they know very little about marketing or measuring return on investment for businesses.

Strategy: In reality, there are a number of ways to track social media’s impact on your business. The metrics for your social media program are not much different from the metrics of other marketing efforts. There are quantitative metrics, which are the many data-driven capacity, such as page views, unique visits, demographics and the like. Then there are qualitative metrics. Unlike quantitative metrics, qualitative metrics have an moving element. If you are serious about the impact, there are several companies competent in providing an in-depth analysis of these metrics.

While your ROI metric is very helpful, it still provides only a snapshot of social media’s true influence on your company’s bottom line. Even more important is your customer lifetime value or CLV. This is the amount of revenue a customer from your social media marketing program will bring to your business over the whole course of their time with your company’s brand. Typically, companies budget about 10 percent of CLV as the amount they are willing to invest to acquire their next customer. In this way, you can compare the CLV of your social media marketing efforts to other marketing efforts in validating your social media investment.

Engage, Drive, and Convert

 

When it comes to social media, the phrase “engage your customer” always seems to be at the head. However, just engaging prospective customers is only part of the story. It does not mean you have successfully driven them back to your site and converted them to paying customers. Treat your social media marketing efforts as you would other marketing programs. Plan carefully, budget adequately, and analyze your results.

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FREE Tools for Measuring Social Media achievement

One of the most demanding tasks in selling digital marketing to the C-Suite is defining the return on investment (ROI). It can be mainly challenging when justifying the budget for social media marketing (SMM).

Marketing ROI has usually been measured like this:
Return on Investment (%) = (Net profit / Marketing Costs) × 100.

Sometimes, cost per customer gaining is the measure. As recently as 2010, the dawn of social media marketing, those in the C-Suite attempted to apply the tried and true transactional ROI model to SMM. The CMO review, as reported by Forbes, lists the most common metrics used to measure social media investment.
 

 1. HootSuite
 

HootSuite is a good all around tool to use for management and metrics tracking. You can plan posts from multiple social media channels as well as create over 30 individual reports. The free metrics are somewhat limited, but for basic it's all you will need.
 

2. SocialMention

SocialMention is an collective tool similar to Google Alerts, but for social media, only. This will give you insight into not only what is being said, but who is saying it and what the universal sentiment is.
You can set an RSS feed, email alerts, or even add a real-time widget to your website. You can also download a CSV/Excel file for further assessment.
 

3. Klout
 

Monitoring influence isn't an accurate science, but having a tool that helps you begin to gage someone's online existence can be useful. Klout is a free tool that will allow you to measure influence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and several other channels.
 

4. Facebook Insights

The Facebook insights control panel gives you all of the analytics data for your Facebook page. The insights allow you to understand your audience, what they are reacting to, and adjust your content to meet their needs.
 

5. Twitter Analytics
 

Twitter now has its own analytics control panel. With Twitter Analytics you can track timeline activity, including tweets that were favorited, retweeted, and replied to. The tool also tracks number of mentions, new followers and newly followed. For more information, see "Twitter Analytics: A Beginner's Guide".
 

6. Google Analytics
 

With Google Analytics Campaign Tracking, you can set up links for campaigns with UTM parameters to track the movement. Go here to create the link using Google link shortener for campaigns.
This is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to track success of a specific link within a movement. It's also one of the most overlooked methods of tracking.
 

7. Custom Social Media Reports
 

Google Analytics does a nice job tracking the number of visitors to visit a website from different social channels. These custom reports give you extra insights as to how traffic is being driven to your website.
 

If you aren't blogging or creating new and helpful content to draw people to your website, don't expect these numbers to be high. It requires a content strategy to really work people toward your website. These easy to install one-click reports are invaluable.
 

8. Bitly
 

This link shortener allows you track all you share. This is a great way to see what your audience is interacting with and decide if the content you share is precious.
Bitly also integrates into many third-party software packages, making it a great umbrella tool, as you can track within numerous platforms. For example, you may use Social Sprout, a paid management platform and Buffer both with Bitly then review data in individual platforms or as a whole through Bitly.
 

9. Buffer
 

Buffer is a vast tool for scheduling content. You simply fill up your Buffer account each day and it will automatically post the content to the channels you select.
For metrics, you're able to look at a dashboard inside Buffer to see what posts are receiving the most interaction, or attach it to Bitly to include in your general tracking. You can also join UTM parameters to track traffic in Google Analytics.
 

10. TweetReach
 

TweetReach is a huge tool for tracking a campaign or conversation on Twitter. Simply enter your search term or hashtag and allow TweetReach to search for the tweets to tell you reach, exposure, activity, top contributors, and more. You can look at the past 50 mentions for free.
 

11. Keyhole
 

Keyhole is similar to TweetReach apart from that it also tracks Facebook and Instagram as well as Twitter. This is a vast way to track a hashtag or keyword for a campaign or event.
The free social tracker gives you a example of what the tracker can do. If you signup you can get a three-day free trial, which may be adequate for an event or snapshot view of a campaign. To get a long-term view you can sign up for a monthly paid plan.
 

Summary

Measuring social media ROI isn't always easy. Building a brand and improving your customer service may not show up openly in your analytics, but these "soft" metrics can have a major impact on the bottom line.

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Social Media Advertising Growth -Study Report

Latest study reported by eMarketer and administered by media software company STRATA reports that 92% of marketers polled only spend up to 10% of their total advertising budget on paid social media:

The study also asked participants which social media networks they would most likely use to carry out their paid social media campaigns. Facebook was the clear winner, with over 90% responding that they would use the social network for a client’s paid social media movement. YouTube and Twitter were nearly tied at 55 and 53%, respectively, with LinkedIn (35%), Google+ and Pinterest (25%) rounding out the top six.

Social Media Advertising Growth

In addition, 25% of the respondents also reported that they consider paid social media offers a greater ROI than free social media efforts. This signifies a surge toward the belief that paid social can transport about more engagement, and thus, greater ROI.

Furthermore, other sources have stated that growth in paid social media spend has been forecasted for 2013 and beyond. An April 2013 post by Social Media Examiner states that 65% of those polled in another study reported that they were preparation on increasing their social ad spend for 2013. The post also stated that those polled planned on using paid social media in addition to  other online marketing efforts, like search engine PPC, video, and more:

66% of advertisers said they use paid social media joint with other online ads .Agencies showed a parallel pattern of usage.

These results coincide with the aforementioned eMarketer report, that paid social media only makes up to 10% of the total marketing budget for most organizations. While this piece all marketing ad spend doesn’t seem like a large amount, the gradual growth of ad spend on social networks like Facebook, YouTube, and others have shown that marketers  are looking toward making social media advertising more of an integral part of their budget.

The genuine Social Media ROI principle

You are mainly likely using social media to promote your business. You’re tweeting, you’re Facebook liking, and you’re starting debate on LinkedIn. The million dollar question is…Are you tracking? No, it’s not a new social media site. I’m talking about tracking your social media ROI.

If you aren’t tracking, you are not the only one. Statistics illustrate that over 70% of businesses do not track their social media ROI.  This is a fanatical statistic when you consider that billions are spent on social media campaigns each year. You know you need to turn those social media mentions into an real sale, but where do you start? Well, I am here to help and share with you the “secret formula”, so pay notice!

What’s Your Return on Your Social Media outlay?

Yes, social media will likely profit your business, but you have to understand the beast first.
 

First Things First
 

Before the Internet, the conventional advertising methods were television, radio, print, outdoor, retail, and mail.  Let’s face it, there are tricks of the deal that every marketer knows uses to get a good return when using these mediums. Things like placing a print ad on the right boundary of a page so people look at it when the turn the page or personalizing a wrapper with the target’s name so they are more likely to open it. Social media has behavior just like print advertising, but first you need to appreciate how social media works.
Start by creating social media accounts for yourself first. To better understand social media and the go back you will get on your efforts, you need to experience the platforms first hand.
 

•    On Twitter, check out what’s trending and jump into the chat.
•    On LinkedIn, join a professional group to network or start a conversation.
•    On YouTube, browse channels and make a mention.
•    On Pinterest, peruse the boards, create a board and start pinning. 

•    On Facebook, become a fan of a favorite organization or like a product.
 

It’s very important that you experience social media firsthand so you can be grateful for how different it is from traditional media and begin to understand its value.
 

Traditional Media ROI vs. Social Media ROI
 

In traditional media, contact is one way– content attracts an audience.  To confirm the audience demographics, businesses use tools like Nielsen black box, subscription data, and survey responses. Before introduction advertising through traditional media, a business has a pretty good idea of who they are talking to, and the reach of their attempt.  To get that audience to respond, a business can include a special offer or a phone number that can be traced back to that ad.  Figuring the ROI is a straightforward calculation.  Right?

Now, enter social media.  Social media is as extremely complex as the millions of different personalities who log on to its networks every day

There’s not a clear way of communication and the audience demographics are equally as fluid.  For example, while a news agency may post a piece about your product on its web site, the real story may be the debate raging in the explanation section. That then spills over onto other sites. While social media metrics include clicks, comments, follows, likes, pins, posts, and tweets, those actions may or may not interpret to sales.  In fact, if giving your sales an immediate boost is the only reason you’re on social media, then you’ve missed the point.
 

Set Social Media Goals
 

Once you appreciate how the social media platforms work, it is time to build your social media goals. You already understand that there is not a straight line to sales through social media. So what goals should you set?
 

1.    Build Brand consciousness
2.    Grow your Customer Database 

3.    Boost Sales
 

Make sure you know what your business baseline is before you begin advertising on social media platforms.  When you add social media to your marketing mix, start with one network so you can better measure presentation.  Don’t only tweet coupon codes.  Social media is about engaging your audience.  Share company stories, profile employees, initiate conversations, and thank customers.  Don’t forget to make it easy for potential customers to click through to your Web site. Just like that!
 

The Social Media ROI Formula  

               
If you know your business baseline before adding social media, then any augment in brand awareness, database activity, or sales after tweeting and posting can be attributable to social media.  Is it an exact science?  As you try to quantify your social media activities, remember that the return on your investment may be further down the road and only evident if you give to the social media ride.
So what’s the actual formula? Wiki How gives us a couple examples, but here is the one we use:

Calculate New Customer Value using Social Media (N): This includes the sales, conversions, business to business transactions (B2B), contact value, and placing a value on these things. Add them all to get new customer value.

Calculate User Lifetime Value: Here you include the costs that you forgo to retain a customer plus the profit that you gain as a entire, while endorsing your brand to keep a customer. (It’s like losing a little to gain more and adding the lost and the gained)
Here is a formula on how to work out user lifetime value:

User life span value (U) = (Gross distribution per customer) X Σ (yearly retention rate)^i / (1+ yearly discount rate)^i – (Retention cost per customer per year) X Σ (yearly retention rate)^p / (1+ yearly discount rate)^p+0.5

i.      Where Σ runs from i= 0 to n in the first set while in the second set Σ runs from p= 0 to n-1. Here ‘n’ stands for the number of periods used in the calculation.

Calculate Impression Value: This includes the simple costs that are used to impress customers via social media to ensure a quick viewership or membership.( These are usually PPC ads)  Here is how to calculate it:

•    To calculate Impression value (I) = (Add up all impressions from Twitter, Facebook, You tube (Cumulative views), website traffic and other online sources) X (Industry based cost per thousand impressions (CPM))/100

Calculate Customer Service Value: This includes the costs saved on customer service via social media. Add all these values to get customer service value (C). Add all the investment Returns: Investment Returns (IR) = {(Customer Value/ (Time Interval in years)) X Number of new customers + I + N +’’C’’}

Calculate Social Media expenses: This includes the amount you spend on social media during the time of your movement or just taking a specific campaign interval into consideration. Here are the steps on how to calculate the social media expenditure:

•    Hard costs: compute the hard costs which denote the work or costs associated with the actual project during the campaign or during a specific interval.

•    Soft costs: Calculate the soft costs which include the unseen work that composes the initial part of developing a project throughout the campaign.

•    Cost/Time spent: Unlike other investments, social media has a greater value when it comes to time spent on it. compute the money spent per time spent on social media during the campaign.

•    Sunk costs: Calculate the sunk costs involved during the campaign which include the costs that were required during a new addition or an internal fix during the campaign.
 

Social media expenditure (E) = Hard costs + Soft costs + Cost/Time spent + Sunk costs
Now, calculate your Social Media ROI using the formula: Social media ROI = (‘‘IR’’ – E ) / E.
Other Social Media Tracking Tools 

Following are a few social media marketing apparatus you can utilize to increase your social media ROI and build brand loyalty via an active social media presence. Here are a few new tools:
 

TrendKite

Based out of Austin, TX, TrendKite is a social media monitoring set up incubated by DreamIt Ventures. TrendKite’s founders are A.J. Bruno, Patrick Brannen, and Matt Allison. The TrendKite platform monitors everything from traditional media outlets to social media for brand mentions. The data gathered is then turned into statistical graphs for exporting to the suitable departments. Via TrendKite, brands can send anything from a PDF to a PowerPoint presentation to their marketing department, their community appointment coordinator, or even their investors. obtainable via demonstration request, TrendKite’s analytical graphs are highly engaging and informative.
 

 Ejenio
 

A establish based out of Montreal, PQ, Ejenio is currently in the invite only stage. Their social media monitoring platform will allow businesses to tackle status management in real time. The Ejenio platform will notify businesses instantly whenever their brand is mentioned on social media. Businesses can receive notifications either via email or via SMS messaging. With everything from actionable analytics to real time modified reporting, Ejenio is definitely a social media monitoring startup to watch.
 

GazeMetrix

GazeMetrix is a create that approaches social media monitoring from a different angle. The GazeMetrix platform monitors social media for brand images. Rather than searching sites like Pinterest, Twitter, and Facebook for keywords, GazeMetrix scours the internet for a brand’s images and then reports back to the business in real time. Incubated by 500Startups, GazeMetrix has received plenty of media (Forbes, Wired, The Next Web) and investor (500 Startups’ Paul Singh and Pankaj Jain) concentration. If you plan on taking social media monitoring seriously, GazeMetrix is definitely worth adding to your to-do list.
 

Local Report Tool

This tool is mainly unique as it not only offers a local visibility report it also gives you reviews, rankings and a complete social media monitoring part. For local companies this tool gives you the best of both worlds.

For a list of other tried and true social media monitoring tools I propose reading Small Biz Trends 20 Free

 Social Media Monitoring Tools
 

These are just a few of the tools you can use to make the most of your social media hard work. Increasing your brand’s social media ROI does not simply being more active. Rather than increasing the volume of your social media hard work, it is more significant to increase the quality of your marketing efforts. By engaging with potential customers that have already shown an awareness of your brand, you really increase the chances of converting a social media mention into an actual sale. By combining social media monitoring with exceptional customer service, your brand will be able to turn social network mentions into real sales leads.