Today, in 2019, many businesses that I speak to know they need social media, writes George Hawwa from Attention Experts. They are on it as a business, because they know they should be on it. But that’s where, I would say from my observation, 90% of organisations knowledge on social media’s purpose ends.

Many executives and business owners ask me; “Yes, everyone’s on it. But why am I spending money and dedicating resource to it, if it doesn’t produce a return on investment for me?”

Why should you dedicate resource and money to a channel if you’re not seeing a return?

Does social media marketing produce a return on investment for a business or organisation against the cost it allocates to it? The answer is: Yes it does, but it does only when you use the marketing channel of social media properly and implement it correctly.

What are the usual costs with a social media campaign?

• Resource allocation; such as a staff member or business owner’s time to manage the channel. This is usually found in producing content, scheduling, research, acquiring content and trying to work social strategy. As well as the time it takes to learn the latest features and what to be doing today. On top of that you might as well add the time wasted in making
• Advertising spend, for the channels to perform. Let’s face it today social media is a pay to play space. You do really need to spend on advertising to have a chance to make it on
• Third party software and support. Software and programs which help you with your scheduling, asset management and time on social media. Perhaps you have outsourced some or all of your social media out also. This accumulates a cost

How do I make a profit with a social media campaign?

Before I begin, I must really stress an important point here. Social media is no longer about putting pictures plus content on a page and producing followers. The days are long gone in seeing a return on your hard work on social media with pure organic posting. If you are relying on this and still using this method – it simply does not work any more.

In 2018, there was dramatic changes to algorithms and the way major platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin and Twitter show your content to others and how they distribute it. Today, on platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you would have on an average 8-11% reach on an organic post (a post you have placed on your page without paying for it) to your followers. This means, that if you have 1,000 followers, you will only reach 80-110 of them per post. To think that this will generate a return for you, would just see you running on a treadmill. You just won’t go anywhere.

Accumulate as many touch-points as possible with an audience over a period of time, that allows them to have your brand/business/service eventually become front of mind.

The best way to see a return from investment in social media today is through accumulating as many touch-points as possible with an audience over a period of time, that allows them to have your brand/business/service eventually become front of mind.

How do you accumulate touch points and how many touch points do I need?

Accumulating touch points on social media is done through the collection of custom audiences. Through collecting audiences through the Facebook Pixel or the important custom audiences on Facebook which are:

• Instagram / Facebook pages audiences (everyone who have visited your profile page).
• Instagram /   Facebook   engagement   audiences   (everyone who has engaged with a piece of content, even when they are not a follower).
• Instagram / Facebook Video Views (everyone who has watched a video for at least 3 seconds).
• Email database audiences that can be uploaded into the backend of your Facebook ads manager account and marketed to on

These custom audiences are important to collect. Because essentially you are collecting everyone who have touched your brand on Facebook / Instagram at least once, or visited your website.

You may have noticed I did say Facebook / Instagram and none of the other major social media platforms. And this is because at this time, although audience collection is possible on other platforms, it is limited. And nor should it matter much. If a person, whether they are a B2C prospect or a B2B prospect, has access to a LinkedIn or Twitter account, by statistics with Facebook/Instagram being the most dominant platforms, they most likely have a Facebook / Instagram account also.

Once you have collected these custom audiences, you are then able to use these audiences again your advertising campaigns. Meaning you can do something called ‘remarketing’ to these audiences.

This is fundamentally how you create a majority of your touchpoints on social media today.

You can create some touch points through organic posting, but it won’t be enough to create enough touch points with enough people that will elicit a return and help nurture people down your marketing funnel.

How many touch points do I need?

Today in 2019, you need 20-25 touch points on average, from our observations as an agency – before any real acquisition occurs.

This takes 6-9 months to acquire this many touch points with an audience. This still makes social media the fastest top of funnel marketing channels out there.

If you’ve read to this point, you’re likely very interested in the above and should message Attention Experts on Facebook or give them a call on (02) 8095 9342 for a strategy session. You can also book a meeting with Attention Experts via their website to run through some of the above strategies in more detail.

About the author

George Hawwa, Growth Director at Attention Experts

George Hawwa is in charge of the overall growth and best practices of Attention Experts.

George was the winner of ‘Outstanding Young Entrepreneur of the Year’ for 2018 at the NSW Business Chamber Regional awards. He also lectures at Sydney university on social media to Postgraduate students at the Centre for Continual Education. A sought after speaker and consultant in the field of social media.