Tweeting on Deaf Ears? Four Tips to Improve Social Media ROI

R-O-I. They’re the three most important letters in any discussion of social media. Much like a salesman going door-to-door expects to make some sales, businesses expect their daily Tweets and Facebook activities to generate new business opportunities.

If your business has invested in a social media presence, the following may sound familiar. You tweet industry articles and links to your website on a daily basis; you post videos, industry news and press releases on your Facebook fan page. In short, you do everything you can via social media to establish your business as an expert authority in the graphic arts industry. But after six months or so, you can’t connect social media to any new clients or even any new leads. So was it all a waste?

The answer is likely yes. In business, ROI is the bottom line. If your social media activities are not generating profits or reducing costs, you have to either modify or abandon your strategy. The good news is that abandonment is not necessary. These simple yet strategic tweaks may be all it takes to start turning your social media activity into new business:

Increase your social media activity level…

One “tweet” a day on Twitter, or a weekly Facebook update, may not generate sufficient visibility with the potential customers in your audience. Increase your posting frequency to three or four times a day for each social media tool you use and carefully track the results over a pre-determined period of time.

…but don’t sacrifice quality for quantity

If frequency isn’t your problem, it could be quality. Nothing will turn off followers and fans faster than posts that are, um, “information-free”. In the long run, a single well-written, thought-provoking posting a day will likely do more for your brand perception than a slew of fill-the-quota updates.

Follow and Friend Discriminately

One of the advantages of social media is the ability to follow and “friend” many different people. One of the annoyances of social media is… almost anyone can follow and “friend” you. Ideally, you want to communicate with a network of users who are most likely to be interested in what you have to say.

On Twitter, follow only those people with a likely interest in printing or graphic arts. A strategic combination of prudence and aggression will yield the greatest chance of a potential client reaching you through Twitter.

Respond Early, Respond Often

Social media isn’t another advertising channel; it’s a communication medium. Actively monitoring and quickly responding to wall posts, direct messages and @ messages is part of the commitment to using social media. That poorly-worded reply post you’re ignoring could actually be an “A” prospect!

If you repeatedly fail to see ROI even after modification, you need to restart at the beginning. For now, though, social media gives you the opportunity to reach thousands of potential clients, each only a click away from your company’s website.