What is Social Media ROI?
ROI stands for Return On Investment. When used in the context of social media, it’s the return on investment from your social media activities and expenses. Paid advertising is one of the most popular ways to measure social media ROI. That said, how you calculate ROI depends on the specific goals of your social media marketing and the metrics you use to measure it. If your goal is to build Brand Awareness: you would prioritize metrics that demonstrate reach or engagement through new followers, impressions, audience growth rate, social shares, and more.
Instagram is the social media channel that provides marketers with the highest ROI, and Facebook, another Meta-owned platform, trails closely behind.
Marketers have noted that Instagram is the most effective channel for engagement. It’s no surprise that more than half of marketers (52%) plan to increase their investment in the platform for 2023. By comparison, other social channels in the list — including Twitter, Snapchat, and BeReal — all ranked much lower, with less than 10% citing each platform as the best channel for ROI.
So let’s take a look into into each of these platforms to better understand why some social media sites perform better than others when it comes to ROI — and how you can leverage them for your business.
Recently surpassing two billion monthly active users, Instagram lands the top spot for ROI. Let’s explore why. Instagram offers marketers the ability to increase reach and boost sales from non-organic content, such as Instagram Ads and branded content. However, it also shines when it comes to generating ROI from organic content.
As Instagram continues to expand its e-commerce capabilities, it’s become an effective tool for generating business. In fact, 90% of users follow at least one business on Instagram, and 50% of users are more interested in a brand after seeing ads for it on Instagram.
Instagram is also top-dog in the influencer marketing space. Last year, it was the most popular platform for influencer marketing in the U.S. – and more marketers are planning to leverage Instagram for their campaigns in 2023.
Facebook is the most popular social media platform worldwide right now, drawing more than 2.89 billion monthly active users. In short, Facebook has an undeniably impressive reach. It also offers advertising opportunities to more than 200 million businesses, making it one of the most popular advertising platforms. With Facebook, marketers can advertise on a user’s News Feed, via Messenger or video, and more. Marketers can also leverage Facebook Lead Ads to encourage Facebook users to fill out a lead generation form without leaving the social platform.
One of the major benefits of Facebook’s advertising tools is its segmentation abilities. You can target your ads towards certain audiences depending on interests, demographics, behaviors, or even connection to your business — like whether they’ve attended one of your events, or have friends who’ve liked your Business Page.
YouTube
YouTube receives a staggering 34 billion monthly visits and commands an audience of 2+ billion people. Based on these stats alone, there’s a good chance your audience is on YouTube. Unsurprisingly, 47% of marketers plan to increase their investment in YouTube in 2023. It’s also no coincidence that more than half of marketers (54%) say long-form content is effective on social media – and YouTube is the undisputed hub for this type of content. Another notable advantage of YouTube is its popularity across demographics. For instance, in the last three months, 83% of Millennials have visited YouTube, followed by 81% of Gen Z, and 79% of Gen X. For Baby Boomers, YouTube is their second favorite social media app.
Despite only roughly 10% of marketers rating LinkedIn as their top channel for ROI, LinkedIn is an incredibly effective channel for lead generation and nurturing. Over 750 million professionals use LinkedIn for networking, career advancement, and more. The platform offers a variety of tools designed to increase your business’ ROI, including Sponsored Content, Sponsored Messaging, Text or Video ads, and more. To succeed on the platform, you’ll want to create valuable content that resonates with your LinkedIn audience. Conduct research to determine which types of content perform best on LinkedIn — and which content will perform best with your target audience — to ensure you’re hitting the mark here.
