Using Social Media To Get A Return On Investment.

Discover Your Audience

It’s important to identify your audience. For example, which networks work best, and where are you getting the most engagement? Whilst you should not neglect any of the major social networks, you ought to try and focus on just one or two to build up a following on properly, at first. Once the numbers look good on those, you can then develop the others. You might want to start with Facebook and Twitter, but you should do background research into your demographics and how they tend to consume social media, this will give you a good indication of what to do! Facebook remains the big one, though. Don’t forget that many of your audience will be using mobile devices, so you should optimise things you share for them! As much as 30% of traffic now comes from mobile phones, as well as 15% of sales. This is growing, so don’t neglect it!

Post Interesting Content

It goes without saying that you should be posting interesting content that your users will actually want to read and engage with. If the word ‘engage’ seems like a major buzz-word, that’s simply an indication of how vital this is. You don’t want passive followers or fans – and that’s exactly why it’s NEVER a good idea to buy ‘likes’ for your brand. Sure, you’ll look popular, but this will be totally arbitrary because unless these people then engage with your brand, it’s pointless. Use your insights, and target specific users where you feel the content is most appropriate. You should also take note of the times that your posts work best, and post as applicable. Don’t oversaturate people’s feeds, but regular updates are important. You can even sponsor posts to guarantee a greater reach! Basically, each update should be varied and interesting to make an impact. The more people who get on board with what you’re posting, the more relevant it will seem to social algorithms, meaning that more of your audience will see it. Which is the aim, after all.

Analyse & Report

Making reports is a vital part of any business, and the social media strategy is no different. You should be analysing what works for you, and when, so that you can see what effect – if any – your marketing is having. Using tools like Google Analytics, you can see whether traffic from your site is coming from your social channels, and much more. You can then use this information to improve where you’re not doing so well, and keep going with the areas you’re excelling in. A great way of tracking calls is to use tracking technology like that offered by Calltracks – the return you’re getting socially can be easily assessed because each visitor to your site will be shown a different telephone number to call depending on how they found you. If your social strategy is working, you’ll know about it! The calls where you make a sale should hopefully be showing as being down to your success in this area.

 

Marketme

Marketme is a leading small business to small business news, marketing advice and product review website. Supporting business across the UK with sponsored article submissions and promotions to a community of over 50,000 on Twitter.