“Social media is a Business strategy” (Gil, 2019). It is important to that what networks to join, when to post, how you measure success should be tied to business objectives. If you want to make your business successful then be strategic and make data informed decisions accordingly. One of the Important take away from this LinkedIn learning video is What metrics to use on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and twitter. It includes content, community, consistency and conversion and what roles these play in social media marketing (Gil, 2019).
Align Social Media and Business Strategies – Aligning social media and business strategies is crucial for businesses nowadays to reach out to customers and understand their purchasing behaviour. For this to happen businesses need to figure out the following first:
- Where are your customers on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms?
- What are your competitors doing or not doing?
- What is your purpose for being on social media? To drive customer acquisition and leads, brand awareness, customer service, or talent acquisition?
Four Pillars of a Social Media Strategy
Content- What users see from your brand on social media. Community- The users who regularly consume and engages with your content Consistency- How often you post determines how often you appear in user’s news feeds Conversion- The actions users take when they engage with your brand: click, comment, or share (Gil, 2019).
What Metrics You Should Measure: When businesses market themselves on social media they look for the following measurements on their posts:
- Impressions- Impressions are the number of times your content appears in the news feed.
- Engagements- The number of times people interacted with your content. This is of more value then impressions.
- Views- The number of times people see your video content
- Clicks- The number of times people visit your website from a social media post. This is the most valuable metric.
Tools to Measure ROI: These tools vary according to the size of the organization. Following are some examples of free and premium tools:
- Buffer
- Hootsuite
- Sprout Social
- Agorapulse
- BuzzSumo
- Keyhole
- NetBase
- Brand24
- TubeBuddy
- Rival IQ
Decoding Social Media Analytics: In the video by Gill, he mentioned different platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram. There are some points to track Facebook insights such as reach, impressions, and engagement. According to Gil, (2019), this data can be exported to excel sheet and needs to be checked weekly. Facebook can also be a place for you to set up a store. You can add a product and give a price, description and the link to take the customer to your website to buy the product (Gil, 2019).
Instagram measures ROI by likes, comments, shares, followers, and bookmarks. As any social media platform, the more consistent you post the better analytical responses there will be and if you are posting more, your company will start appearing in hashtags which will help you reach an even larger number of people.
Twitter is a search engine that updates in real time. Businesses can detect the keywords and phrases used by their target audience. This will allow the company to become more relevant to their consumers. Top mentions, followers, and content are main insights of twitter. Following is an image/screenshot from the video about Twitter analytics.
Driving Measurable ROI on Each Channel
Facebook ad options to drive new customer Acquisition Facebook page has the option to promote your business. You need to make some selections such as objective, location, etc.(Gil, 2019).
Run Targeted Ads: Run targeted ads based on their location, age-range, and location. You can also customize your ad’s visuals.
Lead Generation Form: In B2B and service based business, you can collect lead forms directly from your Facebook page. Age, demographics, locations, and interests are important factor to collect (Gil, 2019).
Leverage Facebook Insights: Under posts option, you can sort through your best performing posts based on reach, comments, engagement, and clicks. As a growth hack you can revive or reengage old posts to bring them back to life by commenting or liking your old posts (Gil, 2019).
Facebook Ecommerce Integration
- Set up your Store
- Promote your products
- Boost products posts to reach more users
Create engaging Instagram content based on Analytics
- Quality content is not measured exclusively in likes.
- Breaking down Instagram analytics.
- Shares and bookmarks mean more than a like.
- Use polls to generate sales leads.
- Get content ideas through the questions features.
Formula for YouTube Monetization
- YouTube requires 1000+ subscribers to monetize
- Create a list of 12-15 tutorials or how-to videos to act as anchor videos
- Title your new videos with keywords such as “tips”, “How to” and “the best”.
- Retitle existing videos for improved search optimization.
Bonus Strategies for Maximizing ROI
Increasing website visits using Twitter Cards: To increase website views eye catching visuals are required along with catchy and inviting URL title. “A Twitter card is content designed to give users a rich media experience whenever tweets contain links to a site’s content. Twitter has various card types to show content previews, play video and increase traffic to sites” (Twitter Card).
When to Use Twitter Cards: Twitter Cards can be used while posting blogs, Youtube videos, and for special offers and promotions.
Drive Sales with Instagram stories: Following are the keys for Storytelling-
- Keep them short
- Have a beginning, middle, and end
- What’s the call to action?
How to be Seen by Local Instagram
- Create visually appealing content
- Post often
- Tell short stories through captions
- Tag locations in your posts and stories
- Embed content on your blog
Writing Short and engaging posts: following are the tips to write posts on instagram.
- One to two sentences in length
- Lead with an open-ended question whenever possible
- Refrain from using calls to cation
- Don’t post a link in the caption
Conclusion
Social media is critical for businesses nowadays and it is important to align your business strategy with the customers on social media. I am not a marketing student thus not really have any personal experience with companies using social media tools. However, I know have a better understanding of its important for businesses. For me, one of the Important take away from this LinkedIn learning video is What metrics to use on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and twitter. It includes content, community, consistency and conversion and what roles these play in social media marketing.
References
Gil, C. (2019, October 09). The ROI of social media marketing [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.linkedin.com/learning/social-media-marketing-roi-2/the-roi-of-social-media-marketing?u=2109516
Twitter Card. (2019). Sprout social. Retrieved from https://sproutsocial.com/glossary/twitter-card/
Social Media Marketing 