How to See if Social Media Is Bringing You Business

When I sit down with hosts and property managers, I like to know their marketing plan.

Most don't prioritize social media marketing.

When I ask "why?" Their answers boil down to 3 main points.

• It costs too much.

• It takes too much time.

• It doesn't clearly produce revenue.

I think social media and content marketing is one of the best marketing investments a company can make.

This type of marketing provides hosts an easy way to communicate with guests, attract new ones and gain valuable audience data.

After reading this article, I hope that:

• Grabbing a camera to take photos...

• spending hours editing...

• posting to random people on the internet...

...Is worth it. Let's dive in.

Pay Attention To The Big Picture

In order to track social media ROI (return on investment), we need to pay attention to the big picture.

Let's say your marketing focus metric is bookings.

Chances are, one social media post with 1000 views and 500 followers won't get you a booking.

But those numbers compounding will.

In order to justify social media, your goal isn't to figure out WHICH thing will bring you bookings. But HOW MANY.

Let me explain.

The Social Media Formula

Before doing anything, you'll want to get a baseline. Go to your analytics and find these metrics:

• Bookings from direct search.

• Bookings from social media.

• Bookings from referrals.

For the sake of this example. I'm going to say I have 0s across the board.

Then, you'll want to follow this social media process:

P.s. This article is super relevant to what I'm sharing. It might be helpful.

Do this until you've gotten at least one key metric:

• 100 website clicks from social media.

• 10,000 impressions.

• 1 booking from social media.

I know, these are a lot of numbers. Stay with me. It'll make sense in a second.

How To Justify Social Media

Ok so I told you my baseline was 0s across the board right?

Let's say I:

• Posted 12 posts over 30 days.

• Got 10,000 impressions, 100 clicks to the website and 1 booking.

• Along with these numbers, I noticed I got 2 direct search bookings.

Cool.

This tell me that so long as I:

• Post 12 times and get 10,000 impressions per month.

• I will get 100 clicks to the website.

• and 3 bookings.

And the format testing is to improve impressions. Do that and everything compounds.

Making Sense of The Numbers

Social media marketing is very much a rising tide lifts all boats situation. If the above metrics improve, so will revenue.

You can find all the metrics I mentioned in tools like Google Analytics and the social media platforms. To keep things old school, just throw them on a spreadsheet and update monthly.

Over time, you'll see how these metrics translate to cash in your wallet.

The most important part of marketing is making sure input equals output.

Otherwise the time and money isn't worth it.

Follow the above process to make social media fun, worth your time and revenue generating.

That's all for today. I'll see you in the next article.