You must have heard it before with all the buzz online that social media marketing is free. It doesn’t cost you anything. In reality, that is one big lie! Sure, it’s free to create a profile on the top social media channels like Google+, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest or any of the other top Web 2.0 channels. However, many people are making the big mistake by assuming social media marketing is free.
Have you ever thought about who is going to do the work? If your customer service assistant is the “social person” that will be working with your social campaign, you pay that person a salary right? Of course you are, that person also does other things for the company as well, so not all of their time can be dedicated to your social campaign. But, let’s say that person will be spending about 15% of their time managing your social campaign. If their salary is R150 000 a year, then your cost for spending time on social is about R22500 a year, but does your social campaign yield any successful results?
Social media marketing expenses
It is very important that you look at your expenses and see the ROI of your social media marketing campaign, but in truth, it’s not that straightforward with social media. Do you ask what your ROI is on cleaning your office? I’m positive that it makes you money, because customers that walks into your office and sees a dirty office that hasn’t been cleaned will most likely not be your customer for much longer. So cleaning your office does in fact have a pay off, but it is immeasurable.
With that said, it really doesn’t mean that social media isn’t completely immeasurable. There are things that you can measure to get the value of your social media campaign, but if your social media campaign isn’t directly connected to any of your business objectives, working out the ROI for social media will be tricky. If you don’t understand this, it can cost your dearly.
A successful social media marketing campaign takes time and effort to show result and time equals money. The value and benefits you can gain by doing this properly will outweigh all the effort you have dedicated to your social media campaign.
