Investing in marketing campaigns can be a nerve-wracking decision for small businesses. With limited resources, a business must be strategic with the budget and every marketing investment has to pay off. This is why social media campaigns tend to be the first thing cut. Although free to set up, they take valuable staff resources to manage and the return on investment (ROI) is not as apparent.

While launching a social media campaign likely won’t bring leads and sales pouring in your door tomorrow, implementing a few successful strategies will make it much easier to drive a positive ROI that benefits your organization for years to come.

1. Reframe your outlook.

Social media is about engaging your audience in a broader way. Traditional media is one directional: You place an ad, the customer calls and you have a private conversation. Social media allows businesses to interact with their community in a public online forum. That openness and transparency is scary to many business owners, but it’s exactly what customers crave.

2. Start small.

Begin with the platforms that can make the biggest difference for you. Usually, this means starting with Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. Depending on your business model, there may be others; however, if you are just getting started, this is a great set to begin with.

Facebook has a high adoption rate and people of all ages spend time on this platform, thus giving you great exposure.

LinkedIn is not as consumer-focused as Facebook, but it helps with business-to-business sales, vendor connections, recruiting and other business-building efforts.

YouTube requires a bigger investment than the others, but keep in mind that different types of content resonate with different consumers. YouTube videos tend to pay off in the long term.

3. Don’t be boring.

Your brand, services, mission statement and corporate values are boring. Although they may represent you as a company, they don’t represent the human element and personality of your team. Social media is about not only building a community but also engaging your customers. Doing that requires you to show some serious personality. 

For example, if you’re located in a city that has a National Football League team, you can support the local team as part of your company’s personality. In essence, it’s about strategically deciding what your company’s culture or persona will be and posting interesting content that relates to that. This means getting outside your comfort zone and talking about things that interest you as a company, not just about your industry, products and services.  

4. Don’t overinvest.

As you delve into social media, don’t rush out and hire a full-time person to manage it. Instead, look around your company for someone (or a team of people) interested in the additional responsibility. Chances are there’s someone personally involved in social media who would love to have this as part of his or her job description.

5. Look beyond the “likes.”

Judging a social media campaign by the number of your Facebook “likes” is a bit backward. Although likes can be a good indicator of success, they won’t feed your employees’ families. To measure a successful social campaign, here are a few of the major areas social media can influence:

Reach, likes and shares are soft metrics that let you know you are keeping your audience engaged.

Social referral traffic and goal completions (measured through Google Analytics) help you figure out who is coming from social media and buying something or filling in a lead form on your website.

Increased search engine rankings and new inbound links can have a profound impact on any other programs you are running. Social media can be a key component in driving search engine traffic to your website.

Increases in branded traffic (measured by Google Analytics) will come through new searches if you are keeping the audience engaged and are “warming up” prospects on social media.

6. Measure your results based on goals.

Decide how you will measure results before you start any social media activity, as well as the specific metrics you’ll use to determine success. Social media is like any other marketing initiative, which means you have to answer some key questions, such as “Why are we doing this?” and “What are we hoping to get from it?”   

Each business will have its own definition of social media success. For one business, sales or leads are vital. Other businesses focus more on market share. Decide before you start what’s important to you. For a free measurement tool, use Google Analytics. For standardized reports, consider using a report suite such as Sprout Social or Raven Tools.  

7. Commit to it.

Too often, a small business sets up a Facebook page, goes gung-ho with it for a few weeks and then forgets about it. That sends a negative message about the business. To avoid this scenario, start small with activity you can handle. Post something daily, or at the least weekly, so your company can stay relevant.