Social Media Marketing: ROI

 

Social Media and Business Strategy

What is a strategy?  “Strategy is a long-term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal or set of goals” (Wise.L).  It is important to understand that social media is not a strategy but it is more so a tactic that can be used to advertise and further one’s business.

 

Ansofs Matrix consists of four strategic options which are the following:

 

1. Market penetration– businesses sell existing goods and services to existing customers.
2. Products development– businesses develop their existing goods and services and sell to their existing customers.
3. Market development– businesses add on to their existing products new features.
4. Diversification- businesses develop new products and expand their target market.

In order to measure social media marketing ROI, you need to be able to understand their direction in which you would like to head which then will help you to determine what tactics to use. After you have figured out the direction you would like to go in when it comes to the social media marketing and have you have chosen your tactics now you have to consider the measurement of the social media marketing Measuring will help you determine where you are lacking and what you need to work on. When it comes to measuring, it is not only about measuring the numbers of followings, likes, picture, words but also the measurement of how your audience is impacted.

 

Setting SMART Objectives

Specific- When setting goal and objective you must make sure your goals are specific

Measurable- Your goals and objectives need to be measurable in order to be able to answers questions such as “who, what, where, why”?

Achievable-Your goals have to be achievable, and what is meant by achievable is that they have to be realistic and attainable

Relevant-  Goals that have the specific target audience in mind

Time- Lastly time, which means your goals and objectives much have a specific time frame within which you would like you to achieve them

Photo credit: HydrateMarketing

 

 

What is Social Media ROI?

Social media marketing can get very costly due to the fact that most of the social media advertising relies on networking and connections and is heavily focused on brand representation.

AIDA Model– “Identifies stages an individual goes through during the buying process”(Wise.L, 2017)

Awareness- focuses on generating awareness

Interest- Once awareness has been generated the focus shifts on getting consumer interesting the product and or services

Desire- developing the desire to purchase

Action- And last but not least getting customers to act on their desires which is taking an action to purchase

Metrics

Vanity metrics– focuses son measuring the likes, following on social media, they are easily measurable however they do not provide information on what the issues are and how to fix them. Metrics that should be focused on are the volume, engagement, and traffic. Measurements of social media are important to “attract, retain, and convert potential customers” (Wise.L, 2017).

Photo credit: Giphy

 

There are social media advertisements that are costly which falls into the category of the paid advertisement and there are also social media advertisements which do not require monetary value and can be achieved through the usage of social media but they are time to consuming. 

Social Media Metrics

 When it comes to volume, quality is more important than quantity. If you have a large following but the majority of the followers are not the audience that you are trying to reach and target that is when it becomes an issue. In order to make sure that majority of the volume that you have on the social media, you need to have a specific content which would attract your target audience.

Photo credit: SocioBoard

 

Measurement Tools

When it comes to measurement tools, all of the social media websites such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have their own sections of the analytics where you can track the activity of your social media platform which shows things such as number of visits that you have had this week, the increase or decrease of the numbers of followers and so on. With such analytics, you are able to determine the areas of your social media platforms that need to be worked on.

Analyzing Social Media ROI

 What does ROI mean? ROI stands for Return on Investments- “ Value organization derives from investing in a piece of marketing activity which helps to measure performance, and profit” (Wise.L, 2017). Keeping in mind that ROI is not a part of vanity metrics. ROI is one of the ways to know what is and what is not working which gives you an insight of what areas need improvement and need to be focused on more than the others.

Calculate Social Media Marketing ROI?

 Calculating social media marketing ROI is simple if you have set goals, and use the right platform for your target audience. In order to calculate social media marketing ROI, you are going to need to follow the equation below, but another way that ROI can be calculated is by using Google Analytics.

 

Social Media ROI=

 Revenue from social media – Cost of social media activity

Cost of social media activity

 

 

Benefits of Social Media

 There are many benefits that social media provides to the business, but some of the most important ones are the ability that social media gives to us and business to communicate their products and services as well as the ability to gain exposure and advertise the business and lastly most importantly is the ability to communicate with your audience and gain insights and instant feedback.

Conclusion

It is inevitable that social media marketing is widely used  by businesses to communicate and advertise their products and services, even though I myself use social media for many reasons whether it be when I am looking for reviews of certain business or in search of employment, having said that I never realized how important ROI was and how simple it was to measure ones ROI and the tools that are available to us to measure our own social media ROI’s.

Reference

Wise.L. (2017), Social Media Marketing ROI

Retrieved from:

https://www.lynda.com/HootSuite-tutorials/Social-Media-Marketing-ROI/504398-2.html

LinkedIn Profiles for Social Business Success

Welcome back! Today I will be sharing with you how to create a LinkedIn Profile that stands out. If you’d like to learn more about how to create a professional LinkedIn profile, please keep on reading!

Cheers!

 

Getting Started with Essentials

Before getting started with social media for business websites such as LinkedIn you need to have a clear vision of how you would like others to perceive you. In order to be able to stand out in your profile, you must display credibility. Because social media is so widely used nowadays, potential employers or business partners turn to social media first to find out more about you or your business, therefore, whether you have a strong or weak ROI (return on investment)  on social media will affect the outcome of decisions made by the potential prospects and/or employers.

 

Here are some things to keep in mind when creating a strong ROI

1. Visibility– in other words how easily your profile is found and the appearance of it.
2. Connect-ability– your network and how connected you are within your field, keeping in mind whom you are connected with the quality and credibility of connections as well as the quantity of the connections that you have is also important.
3. Likeability– having participation and being active by posting posts, and communications made in your social media account will help you create a stronger ROI.
4. Credibility-being able to post article s about your business and the field that you are in will help others see the thought leadership that you possess as well help others perceive you as an individual who has credibility.
5. Trustability– if you are able to display thought leadership that will help you become more credible as well as trustworthy which will result in others wanting to work with you.

The building of strong ROI is pretty much pointless if others can no find you, therefore, to be found you need to make sure you provide your name on all of your social media platforms. It is given that a potential prospect or employer is going to want to look you up before contacting you.  There are chances that they will not be able to find you if they do not have a correct spelling (which is a common mistake), therefore, having a small section dedicated to the common spelling of your name will make it easier to figure out whether they have gotten the person they were in search of.

Your Contact Information

It is important to keep in mind to provide your contact information on your LinkedIn profile, be sure to include your professional email address. Once you have updated your contact information is also important to add other websites that you may be reached at such as Twitter or WeChat. You can also add a customized link to your account which can contain your name and that is what will increase your search rankings.

Photo credit: Tumblr

Your Summary

When it comes to social media, websites and professional profiles one of the most important parts of the profile is the summary section. The summary section is where most individuals start with when visiting a website or any profile that they are interested in this is why it is very important to have a well thought out summary. Even if your company is one of the most top-ranked company and well known, you must still inset information about the company nonetheless, which then can be followed by some information about yourself that will get the other party familiarized not only with your company but also with you and your position.

Your Experience

 When writing down about your experience on LinkedIn it is very important not to make it look as though you are writing a resume, a better way to write about your experience and credibility is by starting with a bit of summary about your company and then transition to the part where you start sharing your  own as well as your company’s achievements without providing too much internal information, to make sure that you are not sharing too much information ask your employers first before sharing it online. 

Create Your Own Brand

Creating your own brand may be easier than perceived when creating your brand one of the most important aspects that you should keep in mind is writing out your accomplishments any awards that you have won or any extra miles that you have and received a recognition for. If you happen not to have any awards then it is best to keep the section blank.

 Skills and Recommendations

When it comes to listing your skills and recommendations one can easily write out skills that are not relevant to the content, for instance, a skill such as being very flexible. That is one of the examples of the skills that you should avoid writing down. A more relevant skill would be speaking a different language. When providing a recommendation avoid making your recommendations vague and focus on being precise with your recommendation, remember it is important for your recommendation to be objective rather than subjective.

Your Educations

Many individuals leave out a lot of things when it comes to education section on the LinkedIn, for instance, a lot of individuals a lot of the time fill in the post-secondary education, however, it does not stop there. You can add so much more than just your degree on your LinkedIn profile. For instance, if you have done many extracurricular activities as a student you may want to add that to your profile. Articles or researches that you have done that you feel fits in. Having your university and college listed in the education section of your LinkedIn profile does not mean you should lave out any other extra certification you have, for example, if you have a certification for completion of a second language or any relevant courses to your field that you have completed, then go ahead and list them down.

Photo credit: LinkedIn SEO

 

Make the Most of Your Personality 

To make your profile more personal try adding something interesting about yourself something that others can relate to and will help your profile stand out more. If you have done a volunteer work make sure you add d that into your profile, having your volunteer experience down will help you boost your engagement make you more relatable.

Extra Strategies to Stand Out

 There are many ways to stand out on your LinkedIn profile, one of the ways would be using SEO, providing keynote relevant to your target audience will make it easier to search for you. Another strategy that can be used to stand out id the usage and engagements in the groups on LinkedIn, being active in groups on LinkedIn will help you stand out as well as help you gain more exposure. To stand out and stay relevant you also may want to consider following LinkedIn influencers, following LinkedIn influencers will help you stay up-to-date on articles that are published by them, also commenting, liking and sharing  LinkedIn influencers posts will make you more visible to the people that follow the same influencers that you follow.

 

 Conclusion 

I thought creating a profile was not something that needed to be taught, to me creating a LinkedIn profile seemed like common sense, but after watching the video I had realized that it takes a lot of work to create a professional profile. There are many different ways and strategies that one must follow in order for their profile to stand out, there are also common mistakes such as a listing of certain skills that one must avoid publishing in their profile.

And to wrap this up here is a short video for you that shows you how to create a powerful LinkedIn profile by Utrecht University.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reference:

 Verdonck. B. (2017,) LinkedIn Profiles for Social Business Success

Retrieved from:

https://www.lynda.com/LinkedIn-tutorials/LinkedIn-Profiles-Social-Business-Success/512777-2.html

Utrecht University, YouTube video, (2018) How to Create a Powerful LinkedIn Profile

 

Thought Leadership

 

Hello there! Glad to see you back on my blog! Today we will be discussing the topic of Thought Leadership. If you would like to learn more about this topic then keep on reading 🙂

Happy Sunday!

Preparing to Build Authority

When you are preparing to build authority you need to be able to determine and list your skills and talents in two separate columns, Once you have written down your talents and skills it is now time to determine which of the skills and talents fall under the “advice “category which means that this is the area where individuals seek advice from you as well as determining what skills and talents fall under the “like” category meaning that this is what you personally would like to be acknowledged for- having said that, take any extra time of the day or week that you have to schedule time to work on becoming an authority.

Working on and building authority can be very difficult, one of the easier and faster ways to become an authority is to find a mentor. A mentor can be someone within the company who already has an established authority, the pros of having a mention within your company are that they have already been there and have a lot of experience. Another way to find a mentor could be through acquaintances which could be a bit easier in terms of communicating with them and having the comfort and the ability to inquire about anything that you would like to know. Last but not least, the third way of finding a mentor could be done through online, it may be someone who is a successful individual in the field that you are in and would want to follow them and the way that can be done is to follow them on social media, read any articles or books published by them.

Photo credit: FirstPageSage

Building Authority Within a Company

The fastest and easiest way to build your authority is to become an expert in your field. Understanding the business that you are in and its system will automatically make you more credible and recognizable in your company. Being an expert in the system and understanding it more than the others means that you are able to provide insight and teach others.

Before focusing on how to become a system expert there are few steps that should be taken are as follow:

1. Learn processes
2. Use processes
3. Test processes
4. Recommend improvement
5. Document support

Photo credit: Giphy

In order to become a system expert, you must collect and document information and the way the system functions-keeping in mind to keep the documentation brief in order to keep the reader focused. You can create a template of the system for a company in a single sheet that will have two sides left and right.

The left side of the template which focuses on “what” in the systems should include the following:

1. What (vision or end result)- This is the section where you can write down the vision to create a pic of the end result of the system 1-2 sentences
2. Why (motivation or logic)-This is where the process of convincing begins by stating the benefits they will acquire
3. Who (accountable positions)- this is where you list the positions that are responsible/in charge for following the system
4. When (timing and length)- scheduling when the system should be followed
5. How much (measuring standards)
6. With what (requires resources)- lists of the resources needed to follow the system

The right side of the template which focused on “how to “system. On the right side of the template, you will see a section that is only dedicated to “How (system steps” this section is mainly focused on the steps that are needed to be followed. If you have too many steps be sure to compress the steps and remove ones that are not essential to the system.

Once you have gathered the template for the system the next step that should be taken is the reviewing of the documents to ensure the proper tone and voice is being used, then formalize and share, and lastly finalize and teach it to others.

Building Authority in the Public

In order to increase your authority is to first become involved in the social media it could be anything from writing a review on certain products and services that consumers may be interested, participating in community blogs by commenting and replying to blogs, -by doing so this will get you more exposure in the social media, creating your own blog about things that you excel in will also help build your authority. Being involved in the social media and creating a blog will surely build your authority but that advancing your education, for instance, obtaining your degree, MBA, Ph.D., writing books, as well as collaborating with other individuals that have authority-is something that will increase your credibility and increase your public authority.

Phtot credit: Venngage

 

Conclusion

After watching video Thought Leadership by Dave Crenshaw I have learned that building your authority is not as easy as one may perceive. Obtaining your undergraduate degree or MBA will not instantly make you recognizable and credible as one may think. Building authority takes time, planning, and most importantly networking and being involved with other individuals that have the sort of authority that you would want to build. The concept of building an authority and being recognized as one is very important when it comes to everyday life as well. For instance, when a post-secondary student is doing research on a certain topic he/she wants to make sure that the sources that are being used are written by individuals who are credible and have authority, and the same applies to consumers, when consumers are in search of certain goods or services they conduct research first to measure its authority.

 

Reference

Crenshaw.D. (2012), Thought Leadership

Retrieved from:

https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Final-thoughts/88535/105359-4.html?org=nait.ca