Business owners often question the “point” of social media, in other words, “how is social media contributing to sales or increasing our ROI?” This is where the purpose of a social media strategy gets lost. You must interact before you sell. For businesses, social media is a communication method meant to build community, influence, and maintain reputation. The ROI derives from the intrinsic value it creates.
I attended the webinar, “Tying Tweets to Profits: Can 140 Characters Deliver ROI?” brought to us by Social Media Today that explores the business value of social media. An emerging theme that really stood out to me was the fact that social media engagement contains value that is unique for every business. According to Ric Dragon, CEO of the digital marketing company, DragonSearch, there are three major approaches for businesses to take when reciprocating value from engagement:
1. Community – Building and managing your social community is essential when it comes to creating meaningful engagement and turning online relationships into interested prospects. Hosting Twitter chats, seeking brand ambassador programs and joining special interest affinity groups are just few ways you can interact with your audience and connect with them at a deeper level
2. Influence – The power of growing your business is a major value that stems from social media. Growth originates from building one on one relationships with influencers and becoming an influential source. Influence on social leads to brand awareness and digital PR efforts to drive SEO and promote growth for your business
3. Reputation – Managing reputation on social media brings more value than ever. Businesses now have the authority to become thought leaders and a voice of information for their audience. Most importantly, risk mitigation with the power to act proactively and reactively with urgency is a necessity for businesses
These approaches to social media engagement will not produce the same value for every business because every business is unique in the way they utilize social media. This is why marketers using social media must think beyond the transaction and think about the path that it takes to get to that transaction along with the intrinsic value social will bring it your business.
Check back next week for part two of this blog post that aims to prove how you can measure the ROI of social media engagement.
What value does social media engagement add to your business? Please share your comments with us below!