Our Best Tips for Boosting Your Social Media ROI

I was advising a client recently on some ways to boost ROI from Facebook, and social media in general.  We understand that both money and time spent in efforts in different areas of your marketing will ideally result in future positive impact on your bottom line.  There are many ways to get to that destination – almost all are effective, some just have longer lead time than others.

Keep in mind a few things.  Social media is social.  Alone it is not a lead generation system – primarily because if people are already connected to your page, you no longer need to generate a lead from them, they are already connected to the business (even though you may not have their contact info to consider them a real “lead”).  It is a great awareness system, and a perfect way to keep your name in front of these people you are already connected to, and more importantly deepen that connection by being social.

Awareness can eventually result in ROI but is a much longer process than a lead generation system.  I’ve had awareness without boosts or PPC work well for me and other clients, but as an example one of my more recent new clients was in my awareness “pipeline” on social media for four years before contracting any services.

Social media can, however, be used as part of a lead generation system, in very particular circumstances. Lead generation is an entire process, and most businesses miss some critical pieces.  I have a video-based training available discussing all of the critical pieces, what pieces businesses often miss, and tips on how those pieces can be covered. Check back here for the link to this free training.

This particular client uses “boosted posts” instead of Facebook pay-per-click advertising.  There are a few reasons why boosts aren’t quite as good as a full lead generation system which includes pay-per-click advertising (as well as other pieces, but that’s the one directly related so what I will discuss most here).  There are additional actions to make the efforts better (good news), keeping in mind that it will still be most effective for awareness and less effective for lead generation.

A few of our clients use a ‘hybrid system’ that is sort of a mix between boosted posts and pay-per-click advertising.  Traditional PPC includes things such as optimization and A/B testing designed to make the ads more effective, and since those aren’t included that’s why I’m calling it “hybrid”.

One of the big reasons that boosted posts aren’t as effective at generating leads is that often PPC advertising is the same ad (or same general ad may have a few minor variations) runs for the entire month.  The more times a prospect sees a message, the more likely they are later to actually click.  Research shows it takes 11 times for someone to see a message before they even realize it’s there, so the very fact that PPC is a steady message repeated increases the future likelihood of interaction.

Boosted posts tend to result in any interaction being a like on the post, or (less common) a like on the Facebook business page, or every now and then a comment on the post.  None of this creates true leads, only awareness. The one item that does create somewhat of a “lead” is people who like the page, since it connects them so that you can interact later, but them just liking the page does not provide you their contact information or do any of the further information a lead funnel would, such as know if they’re closer to being ready to buy or sell. You can usually find their info, but you have to search manually. Therefore it’s not a true “lead,” but they are put in your awareness pipeline.

Because it is most often a “social” post that is being boosted, these posts tend to not include a call-to-action.  Without a CTA the viewer doesn’t know what to do, and are less likely to take any action on their own (or they take an action that doesn’t provide you any information).  Posts that do include an ask/CTA often fall back to “like this post” or “leave a comment” or “like my page,” as we mentioned none of which are a true lead.

One of the best ways around this, is to always include a specific and strategic call to action.  Usually I would not recommend a business do this on every post – you can ready why in my blog article specifically about keeping the majority of posts focused on clients and informational.

However, some of our clients use our daily Facebook posting service, where we are posting daily items of information/value for clients.  In this case, these clients can likely include such a CTA on every status they personally post, and still not overwhelm the audience with the page feeling too “salesy”.

A specific call to action needs to include what to do, how to do it, why to do it, and sometimes what to expect when they do, and needs to be considered strategically about what action will get the results you want and need as well.

For example, “leave me a comment if you’re interested in seeing this house and I will PM you more information” or “click on the Message button on my page and give me your phone number if you would like to arrange a personal tour of this listing”.  You want to tell them what to do, but also WIIFM – What’s In It For Me – for the audience.

Since video posts are gaining more and more traction, with videos it’s critical to do a couple of additional things.

Don’t forget to type the CTA into the description verbiage when you post the video.  When doing a Facebook Live video, don’t forget to add this CTA to the “add an optional description” that pops up right before you click record.  It’s worth taking the few extra seconds to type the CTA in here along with whatever other information you would include.

You also have to capture your audience in the first 5 to 10 seconds of the video.  Don’t introduce yourself here.  Talk about the thing that will interest viewers most in those few seconds, and then introduce yourself.  Ie start with the attention grabber “I’m going to take you on a walkthrough of this 3 BR 2 BA house with a pool in Benbrook that is so beautiful you will want to book a private showing.”  (Notice I was able to pre-tease the CTA right there.)

Don’t forget to include a CTA in the video itself while you talk (not just the typed verbiage in the post or description). You can follow your 5-10 second grab-em intro with your CTA immediately if you want … maybe “click on the Message button on my page and give me your phone number if you would like to arrange a personal tour of this listing” – or you can put that information at the end of the video or elsewhere.  Just remember some people will only watch half of your video.  Some will only watch 30 seconds, or 15 seconds.  You don’t always want to leave a CTA to the end because you may miss them hearing your ask.  If you do this well, it won’t feel “salesy”.

I recommend videos not be over-rehearsed, but this intro and CTA are areas that I do recommend you at least think through strategically what you are going to say, before you start recording.  See a bit more about this intro and CTA in Step 4 of https://vickywu.us/6-simple-steps-to-develop-3-months-to-1-year-of-video-content/  … I also have this entire video system as a short video-based training system.

So a brief recap (yes it took you all the way down to here to get this!):

• Consider changing how or what we boost
• Include a strategic Call to Action, always
• Use that Facebook Messenger bot strategically
• Intro and CTA your videos strategically both in the video itself and in the description or post

If you would like to discuss your own lead generation funnel, claim a free marketing strategy session now!