How to Communicate Social Organic ROI to Executive Leadership
Measuring ROI on paid social media content is as easy as glancing at an insights page, but determining the effectiveness of your organic content is inherently difficult. More so, concisely communicating the benefits of your organic content efforts to executive leadership can be a daunting task. You know that organic content supports brand awareness efforts, reinforces your existing audience’s interest, and serves as the bulk of your brand’s social media identity, tying your brand to the lifestyle your audience aspires to live.
To accurately comprehend your ROI you need to look at the bigger picture and assess the complete health of your social media. For a given time period, compare the cost of production to impressions, follower increases, percentage of clicks, website clicks & conversions. By comparing times when you’re very actively promoting a particular product on social media to either before it launched or quieter times, you can quickly cross reference your website and sales data from the same period to see if there’s any correlation.
Besides, it’s very unlikely the last click is what ultimately led to a consumer’s conversion every single time. A whole journey of content viewing lead to that eventual decision. This is why looking at different attribution models are so important: they help you see a full picture of what online and offline properties you manage help a prospect convert! By giving credit to all of the touchpoints that a consumer had with your brand before buying–not just the last one–you see the whole journey your customer took and can more accurately assess each channel contributor’s ROI.
Now that you have an idea of what your organic social content costs and contributes to revenue, it’s time to up the ROI.
That’s where Thumbstopper comes in: sure, your brand has a successful social media page, but so do all of your retailers! If the same content you’re putting money & time into for your brand’s page was syndicated to all of your retailers, you’re exponentially increasing your reach and amplifying the benefits of your organic content… your content ROI explodes with the reach you get through millions of more impressions. Find out how you can automate the process of syndicating content to your entire retail network’s social feeds. Visit Thumbstopper.com.
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Key Points:
Companies should understand the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) to ensure their websites are accessible.
Brands that concentrate on accessibility on social media demonstrate care for their customers and build a positive brand reputation.
Brands should always consider inclusive design, such as plain, straightforward language, in their social media posts.
Accessibility may not be a term you usually associate with the internet and social media. You might picture wheelchair ramps, directional signs in braille, or sign language interpreters at live performances. The landmark Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) of 1990 dictates the legal necessity of these and similar accommodations in public spaces. As we’ve come to rely on the internet for everything from entertainment to buying groceries, it’s become clear that the internet is now also a public space. It must be accessible to everyone. And like other applications of ADA, businesses that do not comply are liable for damages caused by inaccessibility.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are an international set of standards to provide instruction on meeting accessibility needs. It’s important for companies to understand how this applies to their websites, especially if they engage in e-commerce. In terms of social media, the requirements are less concrete. But prioritizing accessibility on your company’s social media is essential to your reputation, even if the legal requirements are uncertain. We’ll look at why it’s important to your customers, how it affects the perception of your brand, and how to make these changes efficiently.
Social Media for All
The cornerstone of accessibility is inclusive design: products or experiences that are accessible for everyone regardless of disability. The most important place where this shows up is on company websites where most users expect to also find links to the brand’s social media profiles. Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of websites are not accessible, despite the fact that the application of ADA to the internet is over 20 years old. Making websites accessible is a complex process without the use of specialized software like Accessibe or EqualWeb.
Unlike websites, making sure your social media is accessible is a straightforward, ongoing process. Every social platform has been quick to release optional accessibility features. These features are important to many users even if they don’t rely on them to use social media.
Making your social presence accessible tells users that your brand cares about people, not just profits. It’s the same idea as the push for the representation of different body sizes in fashion or more expansive skin tone ranges in beauty products. Brands that meet the needs of underrepresented groups endear themselves to others as well. And while optimizing your brand website for accessibility might be a larger project you aren’t ready to tackle yet, starting with your social media pages is a great way to show customers that you’re listening to their concerns.
Making Content Accessible
Shifting to accessible content means incorporating inclusive design into your creative process. The practice varies by type of media. For platforms that have graphics or videos with captions, it means not only adjusting each component but also being mindful of how they interact with each other.
For example, YouTube’s automatically generated closed captions and subtitles are often inaccurate. It's one of many examples where the caption generation software has issues picking up strong accents and mumbled words. This could be remedied with handcrafted video transcription services. If that’s not in the budget, the video creator could add their script or transcription to the video description.
None of the technology for accessibility is perfect yet. Teaching computers to digest complex information for human understanding is difficult, and the variations in disabilities further complicate it. The majority of adjustments creators need to make revolve around helping assistive technology better understand their content. Let’s look at how to make different kinds of content accessible.
Text
Use plain language that’s easy to understand
Avoid text in all caps
Capitalize the first letter of each word in a hashtag, like #SocialMediaMarketing, a practice called camel-case
Videos
Provide descriptive captions. Instead of just displaying the words people on-screen say, explain background noises and other sounds that are relevant to the scene.
Add your own subtitles or enable auto-subtitles on the video platform of your choice
Many users find their new favorite brand through social media. When disabled people (who make up 26% of the population according to the CDC) can’t access your brand’s social posts, you miss the opportunity to connect with a demographic that’s eager to engage in online communities. On a hyper-local level, that kind of connection goes even further.
That’s why ThumbStopper exists to help brands distribute their social content to their retailer network. Retailers can connect with their local audience - with your accessible, branded content - in a more personal way. And since content goes to their page automatically once they sign up, retailers can effortlessly promote your brand online while focusing on running their business.
