Spending on Social Media
Q: A CEO wants to know:
“How can I be sure the money I’m spending on social media marketing is worth it?”
A: Many companies I’ve worked with in the past have no clear objectives in place before “dabbling” in social media. Before spending a penny, it’s very important to be clear in everyone’s mind, (yours and your team’s), about what you want social media to help you accomplish for your business. Telling your team that you want to use social to “increase sales” is not specific enough. And in all likelihood, it’s not realistic.
Spending money on social will be worth it to your business if creating awareness is important to you - and it should be. If people don’t know about you, they’ll never buy from you. Social provides a great starting point to get the word out.
Another key reason why investing in social is worth it is so you can obtain direct feedback from your customers. Receiving positive feedback always feels good, but in my opinion, the negative feedback serves you best because then, you have a chance to course correct issues that you may not have even been aware of.
And, if you think it’s a great idea to hire an inexperienced person for less than a living wage to handle social media for your company, think again. Especially if you have no idea what you should be doing with social and/or you don’t have the foggiest clue about how social media marketing works. Navigating social media as a “Friend,” a “Follower,” or a “Connection” is one thing. Understanding which platforms are best for your business, developing a sound content strategy and knowing how to interact with the online public is quite another. These factors are critical to your success.
To know for sure whether or not the money you are spending on social is worth it, work with your team and set one, yes, one, primary business goal as a starting point. It can be creating awareness, increasing traffic, generating repeat visits, improving customer satisfaction or something else that makes sense for your company. Ask your marketing team to get back to you with 3 quantifiable measures (KPI’s) so together, they and you can systematically track the spending and progress made, or lack thereof, toward achieving the established goal.
The surefire way to know if any marketing tactic is working, including social media, is to determine a goal, keep things simple and follow through on results reporting over a specified period of time. Only then will you have a clear understanding of what you spent vs. what you got for your marketing dollars.
Lynn Hoban works with leaders of emerging restaurant and retail concepts to scale business operations and ignite marketing programs for growth. Lynn has a proven track record in multi-unit restaurants and retail. Her programs are effective because they are built on a depth of experience in food marketing as well as in operations, R&D, staffing, training, and procurement. Lynn is known for her direct leadership style, which cuts through chaos and gets results. To ask a question or to find out more, visit www.LynnHobanMarketing.com.