Remember the days when we asked ourselves, “What is the value of a like? A tweet?” The debate is over. A social media strategy is a requirement for any business. However, Social Media Specialists can apply best practices used regularly in other marketing channels to enhance the effectiveness and ROI of their campaigns.
Targeting. It is important that you identify the best targets for a promotion using a data driven approach. You can leverage your CRM system and use customer insights to target your customers online who are are most likely to respond to your social media campaign. Alternatively, you can use customer data to identify the conquests on-line who look like your best customers.
Post campaign measurement. Just because it is social media, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t consider control groups and incremental lift. Here’s your chance to demonstrate the value of social media as a channel using the same rigorous methods as email and direct mail.
Combining data and insights across channels. Why not append your customer’s social media interactions to their off-line attributes and all the other customer data you have? One client found that some of their best brand advocates on-line shopped mostly in stores. Without linking off-line and on-line behavior, you don’t have a complete view of your customer. For example, you might be tempted to remove these best customers from your online communications because they don’t shop online; however, in this case, email was driving them to the store!
Are you taking advantage of the analysis tools and approaches that work in traditional direct marketing to enhance your social campaigns?