What’s the ROI of your Social Media Engagement or ROE (Return on Engagement)

In the military, the rules of engagement (ROE) determine when, where, and how force shall be used. Social media engagement is crucial to your social media success. How do you create your social media ROE to maximize your return on investment (ROI)? While not suggesting that force be used, the suggestion is that a strategy of some sort is employed to maximize your ROI.

Creating your own ROE could help maximize your experience and benefit you more. For as many people as there are on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, each has its own theory and best practices.  Have you considered what your goal is for social media engagement? Do you want to gain more followers, get traffic to your blog, or maybe earn some likes on your Facebook page?

My first suggestion is to think about these questions and formulate some thoughts.

Gary Vaynerchuk said, “What's the ROI of your mother?” in a client meeting out of frustration from them repeatedly asking, “What's the ROI of social media?”

Gary says, “ROI isn’t about the tool; it’s about investing the time and effort to use it correctly. The “I,” the investment, isn’t monetary; it’s not about throwing money at something. It’s about investing the hustle into becoming the best. It’s about execution. If you want to make money doing something, you need to be good at that something to see the returns you’re looking for.

So, when it comes to social, learn the platforms. Find the perfect combination of creative, copy, and strategy. Understand the insights, iterate, and execute against them. We can start a real conversation about social media ROI when you’ve reached that point, my friends.”

When it comes to social, find the perfect combination of creative, copy, and strategy.

Here are a few best practices to consider and create a better ROI for your ROE:

Check out your new followers and see who is following you and who is not from the people you are following. Formulate what you feel is best for you; if someone isn't following, you have a few choices. Unfollow, of course, but also decide if this person is of value to you. It is not too late to tweet them to say hi. It isn't recommended to put people on the spot for unfollowing; it will most likely come off as rude or needy. You will always catch more bees with honey!

Please do not ever use auto-direct messages. This cannot be said enough; it annoys people and causes an immediate unfollow for many. The new follower will not be impressed with your sales pitch or immediately like your Facebook page. Respect the people who have chosen to follow you and yourself.

Find a new friend somewhere, and follow them immediately! Remembering people's Twitter handles is so hard, and you will want to tweet them again. Immediate follow is a good idea.  If you are in a great chat, don't forget to go through it at the end and follow the people you enjoyed. The chat experience improves as you create more meaningful relationships with friends outside of your weekly hour together.

Sharing is caring. Make sure you share more of other folk's content than your own. There are different theories on what percentage you should shoot for, but if you are only pushing your content, it can look spammy. And you might run the risk of no one tweeting your information; reciprocity is always appreciated and remembered. The suggested practice follows the Pareto Principle of 80/20 content: eighty percent of others' content and twenty percent of your own.

Lists can also be used for organization and strategy. A stream of your new followers can be used to determine whether or not you should follow. Using a keyword search of people you follow can create a stream of excellent content from people you have already pre-selected and respected. Also, creating a smaller list of people you don't want to miss throughout the day is a benefit.

Using hashtags to follow or create a stream is an excellent way to organize and maximize. It also can be used to reiterate thoughts like #BOOM or #SocialMediaCrush, two of my current favorites.

Consistency is also important to maintain a presence, maintain followers, and build relationships. I hope this gives you some ideas for your social media engagement and why it is essential.

What are your thoughts? Any best practices that you'd like to share with me? I'd love to hear from you!