A Brief Overview of Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing is the method of reaching out to your target audience (including existing and potential customers) via various online channels and through social networking sites in an attempt to establish an online presence that will help you sell your products well.
Just like traditional marketing, the ulterior motive of social media marketing is to ensure increased sales and higher customer conversion ratios. The only difference is that the marketing channels are different and follow more of an online or virtual means of spreading the marketing message.
Signs That Your Social Media Marketing Strategy is A Flop
Nowadays, it is quite common for companies to resort to various online marketing strategies via the use of social media. Besides the usual approach of SEO optimization of websites and Google Ads, more personalized tactics like personalized DMs or emails, Targeted Ads based on social media activity, online banners, and posts are becoming quite common.
Many companies invest heavily on social media marketing but are unable to measure the success of their efforts. Of course, it is not directly possible to measure the increase in performance after the investment in social media marketing, but there are a few signs to tell you if your social media marketing campaign was a flop or not. Here’s a few signs that are highly indicative of a failed or flawed social media marketing strategy.
1. No improvement in sales
2. Poor ranking on SEO and search results
3. Lower followers and fan base on social media
4. Lack of awareness of the brand on online platforms
5. Lower customer conversion ratio
6. Reduced or lack of improvement in online sales
7. Fewer viewers and visitors to your website and Social Media Pages
8. Less comments and positive reaction to social media posts and blogs
9. Inability to make social media posts be it images, videos, or other content to go viral
10. Lack of customer queries or interest shown towards the products from online platforms and social media
If your business is showing one or all of these signs, it could mean that your social media marketing strategy has some loops and facades that need to be fixed. But on the other hand, reduced sales and customer response is not always a result of poor social media marketing. There could be many other internal and external factors behind this.
So how do you measure the performance of the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategies? How do you know if your online marketing campaigns were successful? Read on the next section to learn more about it.
Performance Metrics to Measure Success of Social Media Marketing Strategies
In this section, we are going to have a look at the various performance metrics that can be sued to measure the success of your social media marketing strategies. While all these metrices, may not be suitable for all types of businesses, you can pick and choose what is most applicable for your business. Also, instead of looking at them in isolation, you can use one or more of these matrices to evaluate the success of your marketing efforts.
1. Percentage Increase in Sales-
This is one of the most common performance matrices that can be used by any business. A good social media marketing strategy should undoubtedly lead to an increase in the sales volume and revenues of the company. Therefore, you can calculate for the percentage increase in both sales volume and revenues before and after the marketing campaign and increased sales afterwards, is a sign that all is well.
2. Higher Customer Conversion ratios-
Customer conversion ratio calculates how effective you have been in converting leads and prospects to actual customers. With well-targeted social media marketing strategies, you can entice mere business interests to become customers sooner and more effectively. Higher customer conversion ratios after your social media marketing campaign would therefore be a good performance metric of its effectiveness in achieving the ulterior motive.
3. Greater Customer Referrals-
The Internet and Social Media is one big closely-knit community of people watching out for others. Just like how the word of mouth referrals increase sales and brand image, online referrals can do the same too. Increased referrals online will mean that you have been successful at establishing a positive presence online among the target audience. Also, there is a greater reach online and on social networking sites, therefore greater the referrals, double will be the expected increase in sales and customer base.
On A Closing Note
In conclusion, it can be said that undertaking and investing in social media marketing campaigns alone will not suffice. You need to use a variety of performance matrices to evaluate its effectiveness. Also, if you notice any signs of a weak or flawed social media marketing strategy, you need to be proactive and take the necessary steps to remedy it before wasting too much money, time and efforts. With the right performance matrices in place, your business can reach great heights like never before.