Social media ROI in an hour. Done. Everything will come together perfectly after one social media webinar and then your Facebook posts will magically start spitting out their value. Viral posts coming out of thin air. And this perfect recipe means you’ll be able to see that you’re actually getting more traction on Twitter. Now you’re well on your way to being a graphing, tracking, social media metric genius! All in one hour. And you’ll be able to sustain it compelling, metric-blowing digital content. No pressure.
The real story: You’re a small business wondering what in the world you’re actually getting out of your Facebook post. You know that social media can be a powerful tool and that there’s no end to which channels you can be on, how often you can be there and how viral your content is. But the bottom line is that you’re a small business, just looking for some answers. Oh, and not to mention all of the options (thanks, Google) a basic “Facebook ROI” or “Tweet value” search gives you. You’re in for a tumultuous, sleeves-rolled-up day digging into the madness, or you might just give up altogether. And let’s face it, this is only one part of your job, and not necessarily your specialty or passion.
Deep breath. Let’s talk about the truth: When it comes to calculating social media ROI and feeding the top of your sales funnel, it doesn’t need to be an overly complicated process filled with terminology, spreadsheets, and algorithms that you don’t understand. Most of what you need for measurement is already there, it’s probably free and it doesn’t need to be overwhelming.
Knowing now that you don’t need to spend precious man hours each day calculating yet another metric, where do you actually start? Keep it simple at the level you’re comfortable with. If you’re newer to social media and just looking to start a community, keep an eye on your Facebook fan page follower growth. Ready to add a piece—watch your Twitter followers increase or decrease. Already have that down? Take on a bigger piece—use the built-in tools from social media sites to add more pieces together to start looking at your overall social media efforts.
The short of the long here is to KISS- Keep It Simple Stupid! This isn’t E=mc^2. This is Facebook likes + Twitter Followers = Audience. This goes hand-in-hand with your social media content. Create a consistent schedule filled with interesting, relevant content that your audience finds valuable. The simple end equation: Audience finds value = they value your company.
