Social Media + ROI + Investment

Being successful in social media requires an investment, and typically a greater one than many anticipate
when they begin participating. Driving even a minimal amount of social media marketing doesn’t come for
free, and doing it right often requires multiple resources, services and integration, requiring a layered
approach of best practices for success. First, companies need to establish a base social media presence,
setting up their Twitter account(s), Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile(s) and Blog site(s). Alinean research on
social media engagements, best practices and ROI revealed that the setup/start-up investments were modest
for almost all companies.
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Getting started was the easy part.
Second, companies need to attract, connect and interact with users to create engagement. Alinean research
revealed that to do this well required a layered hierarchically approach of content and activity, forming the
Social Media Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy is established from a strong foundation of Content,
progressing to Campaigns, then Monitoring and finally, Collaboration. Having each layer in place sequentially
was a key to results achievement.
Third, marketers needed monitoring, campaign management and reporting tools and integration (with CRM
and Marketing Automation solutions) to help them facilitate and monitor engagements, interact with users,
nurture relationships, qualify and process leads and opportunities, and measure results.

Investment is tallied across setup, engagement and tools, including the cost for internal resources, outsourced services and tools/ integration.