Danny Wong: The Less-Tangible ROI of Social Media
Source: Huffington Post
When business people think about anything worth investing in, whether it be dollars or time, they usually only consider the dollar return-on-investment (ROI) amount that the project will produce. Simple metrics can usually be utilized in considering the potential ROI on campaigns, but for more complicated projects where ROI isn’t so clear, like social media, it is hard to justify the costs for businesses that don’t fully understand them.
While social media isn’t always a profitable channel by the conventional metrics of investment vs. sales, there are a few less-tangible impacts that make social media incredibly worthwhile.
Customer Service and Customer Loyalty
It’s definitely true that the media will eat you up if you’re a big company that did something wrong and isn’t being accountable and responsible for your stakeholders who were affected. But as a small business, if you get a few angry people shouting, the media won’t care. Even still though, it will be incredibly important for you to manage your social media image because angry people are still angry, and they are often very vocal people who can negatively impact your image, especially with those who see bad things being said about your brand and see your failure to respond appropriately.
This is also an opportunity to win over a customer and gain respect from those who see how you have responded to your best ability and have successfully “put out the flames” rather than neglecting it, letting it erupt into a wildfire, and watching your business burn to the ground (figuratively, of course). Also, with those people you interact with, you engage them on a more personal level increasing their loyalty to the business, which can mean more sales from a customer who’ll be returning more often or from their friends who they’ll talk to about their positive experience with you.
Comment