How We Use Social Media to Get Inside Your Customer’s Head
Facebook is home to over 200 million user profiles in North America, of those 200, 102 million users visit the site at least once a day. Now, your business may be active on Facebook, but you never hear customers talk about how they found you there, is the time you are investing in the platform worth it?
For all its flaws, Facebook can be one of the greatest marketing tools that is currently available to any business. Why do you think companies pay to produce catchy jingles, cheesy slogans, and outlandish commercials? It’s to create Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA). However, it’s estimated that 86% of marketers don’t know how to measure TOMA effectively, but at Optimize Social Media, we believe we have found 26 ways to do so.
TOMA is essential when it comes to a consumer choosing your business over your competitors because that is what makes them think of you when they need a product or service. That’s where Facebook comes in! Not every business has the means or budget to produce TV commercials, radio jingles, mail flyers, or newspaper ads, but no matter what size budget a company has, any investment needs to see a return. It only makes sense to start a business Facebook page and begin utilizing one of (if not the most) cost-effective forms of marketing in the world!
Of the 26 ways we measure TOMA, there is one simple way that I am going to focus on that you can begin using today. It starts on Facebook and ends with Google.
Check it out:
Being active on Facebook by posting regularly, responding to reviews, and maintaining an active listing is a cheap and easy way to get your brand in front of people every single day. But not every engagement holds the same weight. You probably have your family, a significant other, or group of friends that do their best to help out your business by responding to the funny memes you post or by sharing the promotion you are currently running, but if they aren’t actual customers, is it worth it? How can you tell that your efforts are working if not a single person is coming through your doors saying they found you on Facebook? That’s easy, or so we’ve found.
What you MUST do is monitor your page’s REACH. Facebook defines reach as the number of unique people who saw your content, meaning you have to make sure that more people are seeing your content than just those that are interacting with it or your customer base will never grow. If your reach isn’t where you would like, or you aren’t sure how to measure or benchmark your reach numbers, as the experts in social media we would be happy to help. We have a staff dedicated to giving FREE consultations, feel free to call today!
Now, let’s say your reach is in a comfortable place for you. What’s the next step? That’s where we switch over to Google.
Google My Business is a very user-friendly platform that lets you download your Insights (page data) to track things like customer searches (both direct and indirect), phone calls, directions requests and website clicks!
At some point, your repeat customers know where your business is and they don’t need to use the request directions feature. However, you want your “request directions” number to stay consistent or grow because that means new customers are finding you!
I mentioned the customer searches above the “direct vs discovery searches” graphic and all that means is the number of times people went into Google and typed in your business's name or your industry and your business name popped up. That’s where the TOMA generated by your Facebook page is most easily tracked! If you are reaching potentially tens of thousands of people on Facebook each month, are people searching for your brand directly because of that? If you aren’t sure if your numbers are growing, one of the great features in Google Insights is that it allows you to download data from the previous year. That makes it extremely easy for you to track your company’s growth. If you began a social media campaign with the intent of creating more TOMA and you saw an increase in your direct searches, your campaign IS WORKING.
Social Media can be hard, it’s okay to ask for help. Be sure to stay tuned to learn more about the other 25 ways that we can track your business’s success in social media. It’s not as scary as the internet makes it out to be!
Optimize Social Media provides social media & reputation solutions that evolve with our clients. As social media experts we manage Facebook, Twitter, Google, Yelp, YouTube and Instagram accounts for our clients on a daily basis. We help the modern business owner implement a specialized social media strategy so that they can make more money in real life. Enjoy our blog.
