With the introduction of our new Marketing Machine Program, we are getting a lot of positive feedback from our clients who have enrolled. We are also getting a lot of questions that seem to deal with the same basic question – what is the ROI of my social media marketing?
Although we wish we could pull out a spreadsheet with graphs and numbers that perfectly coordinate the dollars spent with the amount of new business leads or sales generated from your new social media efforts – the truth is that we can’t. Social media doesn’t work that way.
It’s not the answer a lot of clients want to hear, but it’s the truth. Here at Orbit, we’ve put our heads together to try and think of a way to help everyone understand this.
Here’s what we’ve come up with.
Think of your marketing machine as your body and social media is a healthy diet and frequent exercise. While there are some immediate results of a healthy lifestyle – like feeling good and having more energy – you know that the real benefits will come in the long run.
Microscopically, we know that putting better things into our complex bodies has health benefits we may not understand or realize – and this benefit is compounded like interest over the course of time. The longer you do something good for yourself the better the payoff becomes.
The same applies to social media. While there are usually some immediate results like new Twitter followers or Facebook likes, the true benefit of social media is working at that “microscopic” level, in ways you might not even be able to imagine.
Is it difficult for a business owner to hear that they can’t measure ROI on social media? Of course it is. But you have to trust that just like doing the right things to your body is necessary, doing the right thing on social media is necessary for your business.
Brand well and prosper
John