Don’t just talk about it, learn how to benefit from it, says Colleen Horan (pictured).
Here’s the thing about social ROI: many marketers talk about it, but not so many know how to measure it or speak to its benefits. Social media is a powerhouse tool and, while its practitioners believe in its impact, many outside of the industry fail to see its importance.
How do marketers prove its an essential component of reaching audiences and increasing brand value? They have to deliver campaigns and metrics that demonstrate just that! Below are three ways social media marketers can prove that the investment in social media yields big benefits for brands.
1: Web Traffic
Social media interactions between brands and consumers have potential to impact the amount of web traffic, a key metric for e-commerce brands in particular, but valuable to any.
Social media marketers linking back to a website or website blog in posts, pins, Tweets, etc, can measure the impact of their efforts using Google Analytics and its features such as UTM parameters to track sales conversions by channel, post type, or creative. In addition, social media marketers can directly track revenue as well by pulling data from their CRM.
The path between social content and a brand website must be easy for consumers to travel, allowing them to get where they need via the content they enjoy the most. Designing this path requires an array of quality content, regular engagement, a stream of fresh incentives to click over, and tools like triggered responses to claim contest entries.
2: Purchase Influence
In early 2014, Invesp reported (based on compiled research) that 71% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase based on social media referrals. What brands post has a major influence on purchase decisions by online shoppers.
Whether its due to direct brand-to-consumer social media interactions or a result of friends sharing effective content to their networks on behalf of brands, the proof is there that social media impacts shopping decisions. However, measuring it requires quality analytics and tracking tools.
Creative digital marketers don’t just rely on brand-side posts to influence purchase decisions. They’ve gone as far as to integrate real-life, user-generated content into websites and social sites to help consumers purchase the products that they want because their friends, peers, and social network wants (and has) them.
Demonstrated here, Hudson’s Bay aggregates user Instagram content to a gallery on their website allowing consumers to purchase items from a realistic, social setting. In a day and age when consumers are admiring Instagram photos above stock images, this kind of social media tie-in can make a hard-hitting impact on brands bottom lines.
3: Multi-Channel Marketing
The impact of social media can spread to multiple marketing channels, cover a lot of ground, and once again drive purchase and conversion metrics.
Take, for instance, the US-based hockey team St Louis Blues. They used social media to incentivise fans to share email addresses and refer their friends to share email addresses, too. By offering fans a chance to win prizes such as season tickets, they were able to collect 17,000 opted-in email addresses. They turned around and used those to send targeted email blasts, campaigns that drove increased ticket sales resulting in a whopping 235% ROI.
Social media campaigns can be integrated or the centrepiece of TV commercials, YouTube videos, ad collateral and more. Hashtags, UGC, and incentive programs are just a few examples of how social and traditional advertising and marketing can cross paths and deliver value as cohesive efforts.
Colleen Horan is senior director of global marketing, Offerpop.
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Trained as a journalist from the age of 18 and enjoying a long career in regional newspaper reporting and editing, Sally Hooton joined DMI (Direct Marketing International) magazine as editor in 2001. DMI then morphed into The GMA, taking her with it!
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