Can Your Brand Measure the Business Value of Social Media Marketing?

Facebook’s forward-thinking decision to support marketers with a wide set of social media advertising tools has helped marketers tap into the online market. From precise targeting options to campaign optimization based on specific business objectives, there are many tools available to businesses that want to pursue social media advertising. However, many marketers haven’t entirely taken advantage of these features or built fully comprehensive advertising strategies.

For many brands, social media marketing is still a new territory in terms of their brand marketing assets. It is considered a channel that allows a brand to be creative – a platform to see who can speak the loudest, make the boldest statements, and reach the most people. Many perceive it only as a brand awareness asset. It shouldn’t be. 

The vast majority of brands today invest most of their paid social media budgets into brand awareness marketing. It’s not only the case for the distribution of ad objectives, but also applies when we look at where brands allocate their spend. 39% of total ad spend by brands is invested in Post Engagement ad objective which is focused on amplifying content. When it comes to objectives that are used to meet far more tangible business goals such as lead generation or conversions, those spend percentages are significantly lower.

The same pattern applies when it comes to where brands decide to target their digital audiences.

An overwhelming 83% of ad placements by brands are set to reach the users on the News Feed. While the News Feed is the key place where the users spend their time on social media, marketers also have to consider that the News Feed is primarily designed to captivate the audiences with a focus on entertainment value. But marketers know that not all marketing content needs to have an entertainment value. In such cases, like the conversion stage, other ad placements can be more effective. Whether it’s Messenger Ads, Right-hand Column Ads or Audience Network ads, there are alternate options that brands can leverage to target content to their audiences. They help marketers meet deeper business goals, generate leads, or convert prospects to customers.

Such distribution of ad objectives and the allocation of spending across said objectives is worrisome – especially when today marketers are dealing with increasing pressure to tie their paid social media efforts to the business bottom line. 

The Takeaway

While brand awareness is a necessary stage to building a large following, it doesn’t directly help marketers measure their social media ROI. To do this, marketers need to be able to track if any of their potential customers who engage with their brand also convert into leads and at a later stage into customers. It is a necessary chain for marketers to visualize and analyze if they want to demonstrate that their marketing efforts are making an impact on their business.

Having a comprehensive social media strategy in place not only solves the problem of proving the social media’s value to the business but also reduces Facebook advertising costs through efficiency. It is the first step towards optimizing spending and taking the brand’s social media marketing strategy to the maturity level that social media channels today allow marketers achieve.