More than 50% of small business owners are jumping on the social media bandwagon to market their business, yet 60% are not seeing a return on investment according to Manta. They are not allocating their advertising dollars in the right way to generate leads that will convert to sales. By thoroughly considering your social media presence and how it can be used to benefit your company, you can have an easier time allocating your advertising resources in the right places where you will see a positive ROI.
How Much To Spend For Social Media Advertising?
Before even throwing your advertising hat into the social media ring, you need to figure out how much you can spend. Normally, a services company will place 8% to 12% of their potential sales revenue into advertising, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. So for a small business who is estimating a sales revenue of $45,000, you would spend about $3,600 (45,000 x .08) on traditional and online advertising.
This figure isn’t set in stone. Global companies such as AT&T have spent 155 million dollars in advertising on social media sites while L’Oreal has spent 25 million during 2011, according to 24/7 Wall Street. So you must crunch the numbers based on your company’s industry, revenue data and past sales history to come up with a reasonable advertising amount. Then you must dedicate your advertising funds to your social media marketing strategies: lead generation, product sales and direct traffic advertising.
Do some research, and find quality mobile accounting software that lets you keep track of your payments to online advertising companies and web marketers. You want to have payment flexibility and easy-to-read statements. Review your statements and adjust how much you spend accordingly for advertising, based on how many conversions and sales are generated.
Which Social Media Sites Should A Company Focus On?
Focus on all of them: Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram. Each has its own unique benefit to a business.
- YouTube allows you to create video about your company, show people how to use your products, or showcase your services. You can also integrate advertising into the video that viewers can click on.
- Twitter can allow you to advertise contests, promotions, deals and business news quickly, and ad nauseum.
- Pinterest and Instagram let you to post photos to boards and other media sites instantly.
- Facebook lets you read about the needs of potential customers, interact with users and spy on the competition to help generate leads.
Some social media sites will work better for certain businesses more than others, based on their industry, product, service and involvement on the platform. Visual-type businesses such as photographers will benefit more from Pinterest and Instagram than Twitter. You should have at least one person dedicated to advertising on social media, following up on leads, driving traffic and interacting with questions or comments. Whether you are taking on the task yourself, or having an employee do it, you should make it a habit to visit the social media site 1-to-3 times a day, at least.
Perhaps the biggest advertising mistake you can make is not being consistent on social media sites. A static page will have you lose followers, while an active page will keep your followers engaged. If you struggle to find the time to make posts and updates on your social media sites, using online social media management tools such as HootSuite.com can allow you to make scheduled posts.
You should do this for all your social media sites except for Facebook, which penalizes you for using third-party apps for scheduling as less people will see your posts. Instead, you can use Facebook’s administrator tools to manage post schedules, according to Mashable.
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