Understanding Organic Social ROI
I hear this complaint all the time: I’ve tried social media before and it doesn’t work. I never got anything off of it. It’s a waste of time.
If you’re expecting that social media is going to solve all of your sales problems, get ready because I’m going to rip the bandaid off - social media is not a magic bullet.
So many people think that all they need to do is create a page, make a couple posts and boom- they’re Facebook famous. We all hear the success stories: someone started their page and immediately got all these sales from it, hundreds of followers, and they get so much work from social that they don’t have time for anything else. Now, is it possible? Yes. But I like to be realistic: For every one page that does that there are hundreds behind them where “social media doesn’t work”.
I get it. As a business owner, I want to know that the time and money I’m spending on “marketing” is generating me income. At least enough income to justify the expense. However, your Return on Investment in social media may not be as cut and dry as you’d expect.
How does it work then?
The first time I meet with a client, I’m blunt with them in the fact that they may never attribute a single sale to anything I’m doing. I like to set the expectation right off the bat that being on facebook is not magically going to make their phone ring off the hook.
The look I get on their faces is almost always priceless.
Instead, it all boils down to what your goals are. I get it- the obvious goal is to sell more of your product or services. But if that’s your sole goal then social media will never work for you. So let’s dive deeper: Are you looking to reach more people? Maybe you’re trying to create a community around your brand. Maybe you want to direct more people to your website or become monetized by a platform. Once you determine what the actual goal is and not the obvious one, you use that metric to evaluate if it’s worth it.
A common goal I have with clients is to increase their reach by 10% over 3 months. I like this one because it’s not earth-shattering numbers. From the audit I do on their page, I may find that they reach an average of 1,000 people per month. A 10% increase is simply 1,100. Nothing major but we’re moving the needle. This goal also helps my clients understand that it’s not solely about sales and how the data works when it comes to social media analytics.
Now, not only is it important that you make sure you have the right goals and metrics but the goals need to be realistic and attainable. If I’ve seen that they’ve never reached more than 5,000 people in a 3-month period, a goal to reach 10,000 in one month isn’t realistic. And it isn’t fair for either of us to expect that unless other steps are taken.
Repetition, Repetition, Repetition
Let me ask this, how many times have you seen something on social and wanted to buy it? But for whatever reason, you couldn’t buy it at that moment. If we only see the post once then that event, product, service, whatever, falls into the empty void that is our ever-shrinking attention spans. But if you are continuously reminded of that brand, the things they do, that upcoming event, you’re more likely to remember it. And when all the stars align, you will finally be in a position where you can hit that buy now button.
The more consistent you are and if you’re putting out quality content, over time, you will notice your numbers going up. And it feeds into one another. The more people that engage on your posts, the algorithm will push it out to more people. Meaning more people will engage with it. So on and so forth. At any point, these people could become a customer. It might be after the first post or it might take until the 100th. There’s no magical number.
Your social media is the TV commercial, billboard, radio, newspaper, mailbox ad, and cold call all in one, endless scrolling loop.
It’s not about sales now
One time I had a potential client call me.
“Ethan, I need to get on social media now because if my business doesn’t start getting customers in the next couple of weeks, I have to close down.”
Seriously- I’ve really had this conversation.
Unfortunately, I had to tell them that there was nothing that I could do to save their business. Unless they had a ton of money to spend on a paid campaign - which means they were not two weeks from closing their doors - there was absolutely nothing that social media was going to do to save them.
I should probably mention that up to this point, we’ve talked specifically about “organic” social - posts that you make as part of your traditional timeline - as opposed to “paid social - paid ads that you run on social to get additional views. Paid social is a completely different beast that we will tackle another day. Proving your ROI on paid social is a little easier than your organic social since paid social is a more traditional ad. Organic social isn't about selling in the same way that paid social is.
Social media is a long game. Yes, you’re chasing the potential customer today. But you’re also chasing them tomorrow, next month, and 6 months from now.
“Ethan, I’m so busy right now that I can’t handle any more business.”
Wow, what an awesome problem to have. But what happens if a year from now the phone stops ringing? Sure, now you have the time to bring on those customers but you’re starting your social media strategy from scratch and it could take 6, 8, 12 months before you start having any traction from it. If only you’d had it rolling a year ago when you didn’t “need” it.
It’s part of the puzzle
I used to have this client that would come into my office every couple of months.
“Ethan, I’m paying you to get me customers on facebook but no one I talk to says that they found me on facebook”.
Well, I’m not surprised. For one, people don’t always volunteer the “where they found you” info. Two, this client in particular was doing a lot of other advertising. Direct mail, radio, and Google ads to name a few. Every time I would explain that people aren’t sitting around wondering who they were going to utilize for the service he offered when they don’t need it. But they were constantly seeing his ads. So then when they did need his service, they would Google “X near me” and he would pop up.
“Oh, I recognize that name!” they’d think and click on to his website. From there they’ll remember his ads in the mail or on the radio. They go to his social media to see what his work really looks like. They may even make a post to see if anyone has used him before. Now they finally call. Which one worked? Every single one of them. And when he inevitably asks where they found him, they’re not going to list off everything. They’re going to pick one and roll with it.
Again, social media is your TV commercial, billboard, radio, newspaper, mailbox ad, and cold call all in one at all times
Its not always obvious
Ok, last story. My first digital marketing job was with a music store. I had this idea to make a post every Friday highlighting a unique repair in the repair shop- I called it Fix it Friday. After about 4 months, the owner came up and asked what, if anything I was doing. He noticed that the repair revenue had been higher than normal. Now there was no definitive proof - The where you heard about us question was not one that we asked - but our repair revenue started improving around the same time I started the Fix it Friday series. When I stopped the series, ticket volume returned to normal.
All of this to say that proving the ROI on social media can be exceedingly difficult. In a perfect scenario, every time I make a post for my client they get one or two additional calls where they openly say “I found you on X”. But real-life is far from that. When it comes to your ROI on social media, trust the process. It may not be as black and white as you would like but with effort and consistency, more and more will fall into place and you will realize that social media does, in fact work when you let it.