Despite what many of us thought 10 years ago, social media is definitely not a “free” marketing tool! With increasing demand to “pay to play” across multiple social media platforms, brands often question if the investment in time and money will be worth it. Fresh produce marketers want to know exactly how social listening and interaction will demonstrate ROI, even translating into sales. It is becoming increasingly important for marketers to prove that the time and resources spent on social media are actually making a difference to the bottom line.
Recently, I sat in on a webinar from Social Media Today and picked up on some great tips on making your social media investment worthwhile. Here’s what I learned:
Use social media as a big focus group.
Companies often invest in focus groups to help them understand what shoppers think or how they will react to their products. In our digital age, social media can be viewed as a giant focus group itself! This is not to say that social media replaces focus groups, but the social data these platforms provide is an excellent complement to understanding your audience.
Measure results – and ROI.
Yes, it IS possible to measure social media success, and you should consider and agree upon a set of goals and KPIs with your team that you are continuously working to accomplish. One of the great abilities social media offers brands is being able to see how many people are mentioning your company and/or products, as well as what they’re saying. Though there are many ways to measure social media success and ROI, I found this recommendation from the webinar intriguing: Take the amount spent on advertising in a particular time period (one month, for example) and correlate it with the number of mentions received to calculate cost per mention.
Analyze campaign results.
You can compare the number of mentions you receive while running a specific campaign to the budget you spent promoting it. By integrating both social media results and sales data, you begin to see if your social campaign efforts were worthwhile.
Use social data for more than just social development.
While it is important to use social media insights to perfect your social strategy, it is also important to use these insights to improve other areas, such as product development. Take all of the social media knowledge and analytics you receive to gain insight into what people like and don’t like, giving you helpful information for your sales and innovation teams and helping improve your products in the future.
Employ a good marriage of technology and human interaction.
While there are tons of online tools to help with social listening and monitoring mentions of your brand or products, make sure to go beyond this to show genuine interest in your audience, providing them the things they want to see and the information that they will find helpful.
Drive everything back to your website or a source that contains more information.
Validate your social media investment by responding to consumers who have mentioned your brand or product on social media by sending them a link back to your website to learn more about you. Driving your audience back to your website from social media platforms not only helps to boost your website traffic, it works to create continual brand recognition and a lasting relationship. For example, if you know a consumer purchased on of your products from a post they made on social media, you can take a step to delight them by providing a recipe from your website that they can try.
Build a strong content strategy.
Your social media investment is more likely to provide ROI if your strategy is well thought-out and planned. Research valuable dates related to your products so that you will know who will be talking about what and when. Our social media content calendar for 2016 is packed full of various dates that you will find helpful for marketing your brand.
If you’re still looking for more ways to make your social media investment worthwhile, make sure to check out these additional social media blog posts on The Core for pointers!
