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Thought Leadership

Social Media ROI Series Part 2: Marketing Statistics

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Social Media ROI - Marketing Statistics
Marketing Statistics
Glad you could join me in this part 2 series. Hoping that part 1, proved valuable. I would like to hear from you on that. Today, lets look at some other ROI model.

Do you know that most organizations socialize their operations solely for marketing purposes? This happens to be the most important part of any social media program: thus the famous social media marketing discipline.

Then, what should you be on the lookout for? In as far as marketing statistics go brands should measure:

  • Reach and awareness
  •  Marketing equivalency

Reach and awareness
Find any social media strategy and you are bound to find, increasing brand awareness neatly written down as a goal. Brands (all) want prospective customers to know they exist. And not only that, but their ability to solve their (customers) day-to-day challenges. It is believed that the more people get to see or hear something about your brand, the more the likelihood of them seeking your brand’s services/products when a need strikes.

In the social realm, reach refers to the number of people who have seen your post. And just so you know content is what drives social media reach. Facebook’s algorithm takes your content and feeds it into your fans/followers newsfeed. The quality and freshness of your content determines if it will be seen or disappear into the content abyss.

Assuming that all factors are kept constant, then the total number of people who see your post, equals your social media reach.

This metric is categorised into paid and organic. According to Facebook, organic reach is the total number of unique people who were shown your post through unpaid distribution. Paid reach on the other hand is the total number of unique people who were shown your post because of ads. This implies that when you feel your content or page is not getting the desirable organic reach you set out for: you can always go the paid way.

Unfortunately, a study from Social@ogilvy explained how we are fast approaching the end of organic reach. And, true to their prediction: today before your content gains the traction it needs, you have to really…really offer value in every piece of content. Good news, you have a reason to explain your spend: paid reach.

Be careful not to lose out. Yes, you can get all the reach you want and in return awareness. But will you be pushing the brand goals forward? If you pair reach with key goals such as lead generation, you add value to the whole metric. Thus, reach in themselves do not count for much.

Marketing Equivalency
According to Liveworld, ‘Marketing equivalency ROI should reveal how social media costs compare to those of other media, ideally demonstrating that social achieves its goals more efficiently than other spend.’

In his book, Social Media Handbook, Peter explains how we can determine marketing equivalency. Simply measure your social reach and ask yourself how much money you would spend to reach the same number of people using traditional media.

Consider this: suppose a social media program runs 300,000 to reach 1 million people with 60 million impressions. You might calculate that it would cost 4 million to get the same results through advertising.

This is the value of calculating this equivalency. Once you calculate a campaign’s marketing equivalency ROI, you can go to your CEO and say, “Instead of spending 4 million on traditional marketing on that campaign, let’s spend 300,000 doing it through social channels, save a few million, and increase our overall social media budget!”

At the end of the day, companies are looking to save costs but achieve the same results. If you can prove value through minimal spend then what will prevent the management from giving you all the backing you need?

Brands spend a fortune on ads that might just not be as effective as social media programs. In addition, as all marketing objectives aim to drive more business, then why not be on the lookout for this metric.

What is your biggest challenge in as far as marketing statistics are concerned?


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