This is not a post telling you all the things you’re doing wrong on social media. Nor is it a list of things you should be doing to increase your social presence.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll tell you what we will be discussing today. It has much more to do with mindset than mistakes or lists of things to do.

Don’t get me wrong: Those lists of action items for your social media pages — such as those you may have read in many of our other blog posts and others out there on the interwebs — are not to be discounted in any way. By all means, you need real strategies and ideas to make your social pages work for you.

But at the same time, you don’t want to view those tasks as loathsome. Wouldn’t it be nice to get excited about tackling social media marketing? You see, as with anything we do in life, our attitudes about it make all the difference between failure versus success. Dread versus enjoyment. Disgruntlement versus joy.

It’s All About Mindset

As someone who actively pursues ways to shift my mindset from negative to positive — via personal development books, websites and a regular yoga practice — I wanted to invite you to shift the way you think about social media in general.

That is to say, if you have the mindset that social media is difficult, time-consuming and tedious, then it most certainly will be so. If, however, you view it as an asset to your business, then you will more easily embrace social media and take steps to make it work for you.

You might even start to enjoy social media marketing. You with me here? Great! Let’s dive in.

via GIPHY

Problem or Opportunity?

The first thing is to start thinking about social media as an opportunity for your business rather than a problem. I know what you’re thinking: What kind of opportunity, aka return on investment, are we talking about here?

It’s a tricky question because you cannot simply measure your ROI based on direct dollars. Your customer engagement and the growth of your audience over time are other measures of success that deliver value to your organization. Ultimately, it’s the combination of metrics, both tangible and intangible, that paint the complete picture of ROI for your business.

Some metrics are measurable in dollars and cents; for instance, if you create a coupon offer using Rallio’s proprietary technology, you can easily track exactly how many people redeem the coupon. If, on the other hand, you post a photo of you and your staff volunteering at the local soup kitchen, and you earn several likes, shares and comments, then the return is less measurable. Here, you’ve increased your customer engagement and enhanced your business’s reputation.

Both of those metrics are critical in considering what kind of opportunity social media presents. And each leader in your company probably has a different idea about which metric is more important.

If there’s one thing we can agree on, however, it’s that there is undeniably plenty of opportunity for the taking in social media. How you choose to view those opportunities is up to you and your cohorts. Let’s take a closer look at the different types of opportunities around which you can create a mindset for success.

[bctt tweet=”Think about social media as an opportunity for your business rather than a problem.” username=”rallioHQ”]

Tangible Returns

As I mentioned above, online offers present some of the easiest ways to see a tangible return, but here’s the key: It only works if 1) customers can easily redeem the offer, and 2) you are able to track redemptions.

My colleague Becca Edwards goes into great detail about how to create slam-dunk online offers in this post, and I highly recommend reading it. And be sure to get in touch with us via sales@www.rallio.com to see how our coupon technology works at a brand and local level.

With online offers, you have a chance to see which types of offers work the best, and then you can lather, rinse and repeat with future offers, or create similar offers your audience would like to see. If an offer doesn’t get a good return, you can tweak things going forward so you have more people redeeming the offers.

Not-So-Tangible Returns

On the other side of the coin, you see returns that have more to do with analytics, such as organic and paid impressions, ratings and reviews, and engagement with posts. You see how people respond to different types of posts by liking, sharing and commenting on them. Over time, you see the number of page likes grow.

In this post, you can learn more about the social media analytics that matter most to your business. In the meantime, take a look at two main opportunities that are present in building your brand on social media.

1. You get to interact one-on-one with customers. Think about it. There was a time when the only way to have real conversations with customers was if they showed up in your store or if they sent you an angry email. Nowadays, you get to chat with them and respond to their comments, questions and complaints in real time. You get to show them there are real people with real personalities working at your business, and they care about their customers!
2. Build a following, and you stay top of mind with customers every day. If you put the time into engaging with customers regularly in a non-salesy way, they will be more likely to visit your page often and share it with friends. Then, when you have a chance to meet a need or present an offer, they will want to listen to your message and take action. Over time, you will become the go-to person in your industry, and when a need arises, you’ll be the first person they think of. How’s that for an opportunity?

[bctt tweet=”Nowadays, you get to chat with customers in real time. #socialmedia” username=”rallioHQ”]

Less struggling, more ease. That’s what we’re going for here. And ultimately, more money in your pocket if you successfully grow your audience and engage your customers to buy.

Think you can shift your mindset to embrace social media as opportunity? Or are you already there? I’d love to hear your thoughts.