By Brooke B. Sellas, {grow} Contributing Columnist
The number one thing I ask on sales calls is, “What’s your social media marketing purpose?” Or, “What’s the value of your social media activity?”
You’d probably be saddened by how many people don’t know.
And it’s not just the “small guys” — the big guys have difficulty answering this question, too.
To me, this means your social media strategy is in trouble from the get-go.
So let’s figure out how to answer this question. And maybe we’ll save a few social strategies in the process.
What’s Your Social Media Marketing Purpose?
Start here. Why is always a fantastic place to start.
The dictionary defines “purpose” as …
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1.the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists.
First of all, your social media channels should exist to support your business. Secondly, you should be able to tie your social media activity to business outcomes.
Clients will often ask what kind of key performance indicators (KPIs) and growth we provide. And I’ll have to turn it around and be like, “Nope. What are YOUR KPIs? What are YOUR growth goals?”
Why don’t businesses know this is beyond me.
Above all, start by looking at your social media goals. Most noteworthy, try on the following three …
- Awareness
- Engagement
- Conversion
If that’s too basic for you, try
- Awareness
- Adoption
- Advocacy
Settle on your success metrics. Now we’re cooking with grease!
Choose Your Success Metrics
Now we’ve got the what. We know what we’re solving for.
Let’s use awareness and adoption as examples.
Awareness
Let’s say your shoe brand gets 500 brand mentions a month, while the competitor you’re most aligned with gets 5,000 a month.
If your awareness goal is to capture a 10% higher share of voice (SOV), you’ve got yourself an awareness KPI around SOV and/or share of market (SOM).
On average, a 10 point difference between SOV and SOM leads to 0.5% of extra market share growth. Therefore, a brand with a market share of 20.5% with an ESOV of 10 points would grow to 21% market share over a year.
Since we know that excess share of voice (ESOV) can drive market share, we’ve got a social media activity that can help us drive a business outcome.
Adoption
Continuing with the shoe brand example, let’s say you pay your customer service support person $20/hour. If the average length of a call 15 mins, you’re likely covering four calls for $20.
Now imagine most of those calls can be solved by a chatbot. What if the chatbot can solve 100 requests in an hour? You’re saving $500 bucks!
Again, we’ve got social media meaning with this KPI.
Once you’ve decided on your success metrics you’ll have a clear path to follow for your social media marketing purpose.
No more guessing. Now we’re able to show results!
Establish A Baseline
Now we have a why and a what. We need the how.
Take your success metrics and start to track them. We like to use Sprout Social (because let’s face it, their reports are SO PRETTY).
But you can use any social tool or dashboard. Heck, use Excel. Just make sure you’re tracking your KPIs.
Once you know what your baseline — or average — numbers are around your success metrics, you can start to learn where you’re doing well. And not so well.
Now excuse me while I get totally #basic on you for a second and remind you to set SMART goals with your baseline success metrics.
SMART (for those of you living under a rock) means:
- Specific: Your goals should be clear, simple, and defined.
- Measurable: This is where your success metrics and baseline come in.
- Achievable: Is it achievable? Don’t forget your budget and resources … sometimes not enough of these means there’s no way to win.
- Realistic: With your current resources (people, time, money), can you achieve your goals?
- Time-sensitive: What is your business goal time frame?
Okay, nooooow we get to move to the fun part.
Take Action
Guess what?! You now have a solid social media marketing purpose.
It’s time to take action. And believe it or not, this is the easiest part.
Here’s the easiest four-step process around social media you’re ever going to see:
- One: Collect your baseline numbers for your success metrics.
- Two: Figure out how they measure up to your social media marketing purpose (your KPIs and business goals).
- Three: Take action(s) to boost those numbers.
- Four: REPEAT
So, it’s really a two-step process. Because once you have step one and two completed, you’re just repeating steps three and four.
As a result, you’ll have a clear idea on what value your social activities provide. Similarly, your social strategy will be much more solid.
Lastly, your boss, team, and/or colleagues will start to see the value in what you do.
What’s the value of YOUR social media activity? Let me know below or start figuring that out with all of the advice above!
Brooke B. Sellas is the CEO & Founder of B Squared Media, an award-winning done-for-you social media management, and advertising agency. In 2018, she was named a Top 25 Brand Builder & Woman Entrepreneur in New Jersey. She’s also a blossoming blogger and a purveyor of psychographics. Brooke’s marketing mantra is “Think Conversation, Not Campaign” so be sure to give her a shout on Twitter!