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Many businesses recognize the importance of social media but aren’t sure how to increase their ROI with social media marketing. The steps aren’t straightforward; for instance, what works for a B2B company may not resonate with a consumer brand.
What is similar from one brand to the next is the strategy behind social media. There are tested methods to increase the ROI on social media, such as setting realistic goals, posting consistently, and boosting your posts through employee advocacy.
As you strive to increase your social media ROI, start by getting a baseline measurement of what’s working. Then, use the tips in this guide to increase your social media ROI.
How to Measure and Track Social Media ROI
As the saying goes, what gets measured, gets managed. Before you can increase your social media ROI, you must know where you stand.
Here’s a simple formula for measuring your social media ROI:
(Value achieved – investment made) / investment made x 100 = social media ROI
With this formula, a negative ROI indicates that the money you spent on your marketing efforts was more than the value it generated. While a negative ROI may be expected for startups and new businesses, burning through your social media budget quarter after quarter without seeing a positive result can be a red flag.
Ideally, you’ll have a tool to track your social media analytics. You’ll also need to determine your goals and collect the data related to those goals. That’s why the formula above uses “value achieved” rather than money earned. Metrics such as impressions, engagements, and clicks won’t translate to immediate income but will contribute to the brand's long-term value.
Social media is a great tool to help earn users’ trust, but for most businesses, it’s not a conversion channel.
Paid vs. Organic Social Media ROI
Keep in mind that the equation is slightly different if you’re seeking to increase the ROI of your paid social media campaigns compared to your organic social media posts.
Paid social media posts have a relatively straightforward ROI calculation. You know how much you spent on a paid social media campaign, and you can track the metrics that matter to your business during the campaign’s duration.
Organic social media ROI is a little harder to measure. That’s where Clearview Social can help. Our platform provides a key metric called Earned Media Value (EMV), which estimates how much you would have to pay to reach the same number of audiences using other advertising models. This tool can help you effectively demonstrate to company decision-makers the value of investing in organic social media marketing and employee advocacy.
The decision to use paid or organic social media starts by understanding your specific goals and budget.
5 Strategies to Increase Social Media ROI
Once you know your existing ROI, it’s time to investigate ways to increase your social media ROI. Here’s where to start:
1. Set the right goal
Any strategy to increase your social media ROI must start with your organization’s objectives (brand awareness, revenue, customer satisfaction, etc.). Whether you’re starting a paid social media campaign or measuring organic social media metrics over a specific time frame, you need to know what value you’re hoping to achieve. This could mean:
- A specific number of email list sign-ups
- Contact form inquiries
- Downloads of a whitepaper or ebook
- Product or service purchases
- Engagement (e.g. clicks, shares, mentions)
- Reach (e.g. likes, views)
According to eMarketer, “Engagement is the No. 1 metric content executives use to measure performance. Of those surveyed worldwide, 36% turn to benchmarks like clicks, comments, and shares most often when determining the success of a piece of content.”
Once you have your goal, assign a monetary value to it. This helps justify your social media budget and understand if your goals match up to business outcomes. Here are a few options you can choose from.
- Customer lifetime value (CLV): How much do you expect to earn from a single customer over the entire business relationship?
- Conversion rate: How much is each potential visit to your website worth to your business?
- Average sale: How much, on average, is each sale made on your website (or social media page)?
You can also compare your organic social media results with outcomes from your paid campaigns to get a sense of what each action is worth in dollar amounts.
2. Understand the algorithm for each social network
Each social media channel has a different approach to boosting organic content. Understanding the algorithms for each channel can help you find ways to increase your social media ROI according to your business goal.
The algorithms change periodically, so it’s worth staying current as updates are released. But here are a few high-level ranking signals for each social media platform to help you understand how to increase engagement, reach, and conversions.
Facebook likes to fill users’ feeds with content from people and pages they follow and interact with. If a user watches a lot of videos, they’ll see more videos on their feed (and the same is true if they engage with photos). Engagement nets higher engagement; well-performing posts will reach and engage more people.
Instagram is likely to show users content from accounts they engage with regularly. For brands, that means responding to comments, DMs, and tags and encouraging your followers to engage with your content. The algorithm also factors in a user’s interests and content relevancy, such as trending topics in the news.
LinkedIn recently changed its algorithm, resulting in a shift that displays your posts to your followers rather than random users on the platform. It sounds fairly basic, but LinkedIn is returning to a fundamental truth: people want to hear from accounts they follow—not the ones they don’t. So far, LinkedIn has seen a 10% increase in people viewing posts from people they follow.
See: Your Ultimate Guide to Posting on LinkedIn
Twitter/X
Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter/X has undergone a few changes that have influenced user experiences and platform engagement. A recent blog post from the company details Twitter’s recommendation algorithm, but it remains somewhat murky to the average marketer.
“The latest Twitter algorithm focuses on a cohesive mix of ranking signals including recency, virality, relevance, geographical location, and personal interests. This revamped set of ranking rules are, in many ways, several algorithms rolled into one,” wrote the Digital Marketing Institute.
3. Find the best posting time
It’s not enough to understand that each algorithm is slightly different. Our research shows that audiences are active at different times on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. This means sharing content at separate times will help your content perform better.
Clearview Social’s PeakTime™ is our smart scheduling algorithm that uses AI to find the best times for your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter posts to get the most attention. With this tool, you can automatically schedule shares per social network to achieve the best results and increase social media ROI.
[Read more: The Best Time To Post On LinkedIn]
4. Post consistently
It's important to track your metrics over time to see how your social media marketing is performing. This will help you identify trends and make necessary adjustments to your strategy. However, the only way to get meaningful metrics is to post consistently. One or two social media posts each month won’t give you enough data to see what’s working.
Most experts recommend posting three to four times per week at a minimum, per channel. Stories, Reels, and Snapchat content can (and should) be more frequent.
5. Boost engagement
No matter what your ultimate business goal is, boosting engagement with your posts is a surefire way to increase your social media ROI.
Engagement is the key to conversion. When someone engages with your content, it shows that they’re interested in what you have to say. This makes them more likely to take the next step, whether it’s clicking on a link, signing up for a newsletter, or making a purchase.
Get help from Clearview Social
Looking for a fast, affordable way to boost engagement with your content? An employee advocacy program can increase total social engagement for a brand by at least 25% to 40%. This can significantly increase your social media ROI. And, with automated tools like Clearview Social’s AI Caption Generator and PeakTime™ Scheduler, running an employee advocacy program doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg.
Find out more about the Clearview Social platform and how it can help you improve your social media ROI. Get a free demo to learn more.