In our new report, The Future of Social Marketing, we learned a lot about how brands think about their top social media goals, along with a ton of other data, including where marketers are investing their time and resources, where they are seeing the best ROI, their hiring process, and more. The report (just released today) features high level insights from our survey of 551 social media marketing professionals and includes research support from our partners, Firebrand Group and Simply Measured.
The data shows that many brands (3 out of 4) consider awareness their top social media goal. As part of the expert analysis in the report, we discussed the benefits of investing in other areas—specifically customer service—and shifting away from only prioritizing awareness in your social media goals.
How much does it cost you to engage a new customer? As Jay Baer states in the report, customer service and customer loyalty are much bigger opportunity areas for brands.
Even if your primary social media goal is not a sale, but focuses on awareness or loyalty or customer service, there are metrics you can put in place that help you define a conversion of that goal. You just might have to spend a little more time and creativity on the strategy side to put that measurement system in place.
Loyalty continues to pay off each year and many studies show social media is a tremendous loyalty channel. Keeping your biggest fans engaged and supporting the cause.
Find out more about how to improve your social media, paid media, and influencer marketing to support both brand and loyalty goals at the next Social Fresh social media conference.