It is still a pay-to-play world in Meta. Starting in 2015, Meta (formerly Facebook) started to show less organic content from businesses and organizations. Even if you had a large following, your organic reach would not come close to the total number of followers/likes (i.e. the amount of people who saw your post without it being boosted, or a paid ad). We see an average of about 1% to 10% reach on any given organic post on Meta (this is now both Facebook and Instagram).
Some clients think the solution is to make more content that might go viral or generate more views. Our primary goal is to leverage social media to help generate additional revenue for clients. Here are some things to consider when developing a social media strategy.
1) Likes do not automatically equal more revenue
One of our selling points for clients is that we are primarily interested in tangible results, especially revenue increases. We are more concerned with social media driving larger goals like increases in product sales, increases in new customer accounts, and so on. Many of our clients assume growing followers, views, and likes will translate into revenue. Not so. As part of our 360-Degree marketing program, we focus on serving content to the right audience for your business or organization at the right time, repeatedly. This means we would rather have 10 clicks and $100,000 in revenue than 1,000 clicks and $100,000 in revenue. Clicks cost money. Generating a single click can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars depending on your market and your competition. Our goal through both paid and organic social media marketing is to generate the best result with the least amount of overhead. There is a lot more that goes into conversion math, but it is important to look at the value, not the vanity stats.
2) More viewers do not mean more customers
Building on point 1, always keep in mind your market size. If you have a niche product at a premium price, no matter how many people like or follow you, there are only a select number of people who are or will be your customers. We worked with a luxury audio company, one of the best in the world, whose products were also some of the most expensive. They built audio for people that can detect differences in quality down to levels lost on most of us. If you do a keyword search for high-end home audio/luxury audio/ premium home audio, the results number in the hundreds of thousands. But we knew the market, and we knew how many people would pay a premium for a small increase in audio quality. Globally, that’s about 50,000 to 100,000 people. That number easily drops to 10,000 at a given moment if you remove people who have purchased from a competitor or have recently purchased.
If we focused on likes/follows only, we could quickly grow the social media audience. However, it would not meaningfully increase sales revenue. Lots of people liked this brand because their expertise is world-class, but their social media comments were not from their target audience. For example, one comment said, “I sampled the new widget at the audio store in Chicago and it is truly amazing, the best sound quality in years. I can’t wait until I hit the lottery, it will be the first thing I purchase.” That is great for brand image and perception, but if you are running an expensive marketing campaign to drive revenue in a short period of time, getting more likes and follows from this audience will not provide a good ROI.
Depending on your goals, more viewers do not mean more revenue. It is one of the many reasons for the rapid decline in print advertising. It is not about circulation, it is about which marketing tools will reach the most members of your audience at the right time.
3) What matters most is connecting with your audience
We work with all types of businesses, organizations, and political campaigns. What works in one situation might not work in another. In political campaigns, you might get a lot of likes and a lot of donations from social media campaigns. However, if those likes and donations are outside your district, it does not matter. What matters is how much of your campaign marketing connects with the voters in your election.
Think deeply about your goals for your marketing, especially in the social media context. Look for agencies that are focused on conversions and adding value.
