Why social media?

There’s no doubt that social media is time consuming. Not only can it be the classic rabbit hole you fall down when you spot something interesting on your feed and two hours later realise you’ve been reading about advanced robotics instead of working, but to run your account at an optimal level takes 5-6 hours a week. Per channel. You might now be rethinking your plan for your brand to be on EVERY platform, right?

Measuring the data

An additional issue is that not all of the benefits of social media are measurable. Much as I would love, as a social media manager, to give you a complete breakdown of your analytics with regards ROI (return on investment), it isn’t possible. A well run social media channel offers brand awareness benefits which might still be relevant a couple of years down the line, and it’s impossible to measure these. But lots of data IS measurable, and can give you an idea of the kind of ROI you can expect.

Case Studies

Let’s look at some case studies to see how social media has made a difference.

Travelmate Robotics cracked their internet success in a matter of weeks.  Their product was a futuristic, robotic ‘smart’ suitcase which navigates obstacles and weighs the contents for you. The company made an innovative video on their social media channels which was picked up by bigger channels when it started to gain traction. Viewers loved to watch the imaginative, entertaining video and it went viral through sharing on sites like Tech Insider, Business Insider and CNN.  The video on Business Insider’s Facebook page alone got 37 million views. Unfortunately, Travelmate were the exception rather than the rule. Hardly anyone gets this kind of helping hand with their PR. But it pays to keep in mind that you can put yourself ahead of the competition if you create an entertaining video people want to watch.

Hubspot has run a series of experiments to increase their blog traffic through the use of social media. They managed to increase it by 241%. Interestingly, they found Twitter was the best source of shares in terms of driving traffic to their blog, even though LinkedIn had a higher number of shares.

There are other large companies that have done very well out of social media campaigns. Dove, who know their customers very well, used research which found 80% of women had encountered body negativity on social media to run a campaign to turn this around. Their #SpeakBeautiful campaign saw the hashtag being used 168,000 times and 800 million social media impressions. That’s an impressive audience! (http://ostmarketing.com/5-outstanding-social-media-marketing-case-studies/)

But small organisations can benefit too. Our client Grassmarket Community Project is a case in point. Jonny the CEO took a gamble and joined up as a programme partner with Digital Mums, who train mums experienced in PR, marketing or journalism and returning to the workplace after having children. GCP got me in the draw, and we are still happily together! Grassmarket Community Project doubled their social media following and became better known in the local area, with people commenting on their innovative and entertaining social media accounts. Some metrics were just silly figures – an increase In comments on Facebook of 6500%! Likes up by 1900%. Likes on Twitter up by 3000%. In short, a lot more engagement. Increased awareness of GCP as a wedding venue also led to increased wedding bookings, and we hope this is something that will snowball as guests come to the weddings and people see photos online.

And Socially Contented, and founder Cathy Wassell, have benefited from the power of Twitter. Through becoming more known on social media (almost 2000 Twitter followers in 6 months) she has guested on two podcasts which will be broadcast soon. All PR which will ultimately benefit the business – and another immeasurable part of ROI.

If you’d like to read more, click here.

If you’d like to talk about social media for your business, you can get in touch here.