Social media is just as important an Internet marketing tactic as ever for most businesses. In fact, most marketers claim that social media is essential for their business. Yet despite helpful tools like Google Analytics and even Facebook insights, the ROI from marketing sources like social media sites is still hard for most businesses to measure. How do you know which social media outlet your leads, your traffic, your profit is really coming from? What do all those likes, retweets, comments and shares really mean for your business and how can you learn from them?
Without a real understanding of all this social data you’re getting, it can be difficult to recognize any actionable takeaways, and almost impossible to leverage all this information in order to improve your marketing strategies. We’re here to help you find out what you can really take away from your latest retweet and how you can use that information to your advantage.
Pay attention to likes, retweets, comments and more—and let them (and the consumers behind them) help you refocus your marketing: Engage with those in your audience who have the largest followings who have also shown an interest in your brand by mentioning or referencing it via social media. They have the power to influence others, recognize them and reach out to them. And don’t forget to keep track of the language they’re using to refer to your brand, this can help you adjust the way you write to appeal to what you now know your audience likes, and even better, it can be helpful for both SEO and PPC keyword research down the line.
Take feedback as an indicator of what needs improvement: Not everything you can learn from the results of your social media campaigns are based in numbers and stats; sometimes feedback—and criticism—can serve their own purposes in helping you improve. If people love something, or more often when they hate something, trust us, they’re not going to hesitate to share that with the world. Check out what your competition may be doing right, while taking advantage of criticism your own business may be receiving. Use it as a learning experience; let it tell you what really needs to be improved. Whether it’s your strategy, your services, your products or even your customer service—make sure what you’re putting out there will be talked about as the best, because it really is the best.
Use the social media response you’re getting to close sales: It’s a lot easier to reach out to a potential client, or reengage a past one, if you know where they’re coming from, what they like, what they’re like, and what they’re looking for. Just one tweet about your brand by a consumer could tell your sales team a great deal about how to approach them—what sorts of language to use, what sorts of products to pitch, and more. Use this to your advantage to attract specific followers to specific products, cutting back on ineffective outreach and cutting straight to the close of a deal.