Every day, as a small business owner, you keep a keen eye on ways to increase profitability, from cutting expenses to measuring the results of your marketing campaigns.

It’s also smart, at times, to “follow the money” and see how some of the really large corporations are using social media to maximize their marketing ROI.

A recent post on Forbes.com, “7 Tips for Big-Budget Marketers to Maximize Social Media ROI,” offers an overview using Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) insight.

These tips might help “put some metrics around” almost any marketing effort for companies large and small.

Here’s a summary of that article with the seven tips listed as they appear in the article:

1. “Monitor the conversation.”

Keeping an ear open on the social media platforms, like Twitter and Facebook, is a must to ‘hear’ what customers think about your brand.

Practical Tip: Come up with strategies to promote your brand. For example, offer incentives for clicking “Like” on Facebook or for being one of the first five to respond to a Twitter offer.

2. “Identify the ‘ideal’ candidates who can spread your brand message.”

This is a deep-in-the-weeds look at almost everything having to do with a consumer profile, including geographic location, what social platforms are being used, and how large the connected community is.

Practical Tip: Small businesses can send special deals targeted to this group as a way of saying thanks for being a loyal customer.

3. “Identify the influential characteristics that make up an ideal candidate.”

What’s the degree of interaction among your highest-rated social media participants? Are they posting comments, for example?

Practical Tip: Small business owners can monitor the real supporters of their company and offer incentives to bring like-minded consumers on board.

4. “Use the influential characteristics to locate all of the influencers.”

P&G scrutinizes what they’ve tagged as the influential people that might further promote their brand as unofficial P&G ambassadors.

Practical Tip: Small businesses can reward their social media followers with passes to local events, for example.

5. “Enlist the identified influencers to spread positive word-of-mouth.”

Specific content is developed, for example, that might use gaming to garner further participation from the P&G ambassadors.

Practical Tip: Small business owners can do the same with local tie-ins to community events to offer incentives during a given time period.

6. “Use the candidates in a social-media campaign to talk about your brand.”

How can you motivate your followers? What can be offered to influencers in the way of incentives that would encourage them to spread the word about your business?

Practical Tip: Small businesses can create a ‘fan base’ that could come together during a local sporting or entertainment event.

7. “Evaluate the performance of your social-media campaign.”

Establish your own metrics, as does P&G, to assess the campaign. ROI, sales revenue, and brand awareness are a few that P&G concentrates on.

Practical Tip: A small business might concentrate on “click thrus” and conversion rates.

Minneapolis Marketing Company

If you’d like to learn more about creating a customized social media strategy for your business and maximizing your ROI, give us a call at 763-548-2297 or contact us by email.