How Do You Know If Your Social Media Is Working. My Skin Inc. June 2023 Article

I don't need to tell you social media is a must for your beauty business. If you are reading this article, you know the value of social media. I don't need to convince you. You understand social media is the most cost-effective way to reach current and potential clients.

The challenging part is knowing if all the time, effort, and money you put into this cost-effective form of advertising is working. 

Do you find yourself thinking:

Is my social media worth all my time creating content, strategy, and posting? Am I using my time and money in the most efficient manner possible? Is social media growing my bank account?

 An effective social media plan takes work - a lot of work. And if you aren't formally trained in marketing and advertising, you also face a learning curve.

Running a beauty business is hard, time-consuming work. It helps if you get the most output from the hours you work.

In this article, I teach you how to know if your social media is worth all your time and effort.

Things To Understand 

Social media success is measured not solely by vanity metrics like follower count but by how effectively it contributes to your business goals.

Social media is fluid and ever-changing and often affects the business in many ways rather than simply money spent versus money earned. Being on social media always increases the success of your business, even if you can't break it down to exactly how.

Every beauty business has a different definition of success. What works for a spa or med spa down the street may be irrelevant to you.

Determining if social media helps grow your bottom line ranges from easy to downright complicated, depending on what is important to you. Only you can decide if things are working for you. 

Deciding What Is Important To You

To know if your social media is working, you must decide what success looks like for you and your beauty business. Every business has a different definition of social media success. 

I use products purchased, relationships developed, emails gathered, and speaking gigs booked. Speaking gigs may be insignificant to you. You may not sell products online (though you should if you don't).

One of the most important parts of determining if your social media is working for you is deciding HOW or WHAT you will measure to gauge your success.  

There are different ways to determine this, including:

Platform Metrics (Followers, Reach, Impressions, & Engagement Rates).

Email Sign Ups

Contact Form Inquires.

Products Sold

Appointments Booked

Website visits

Platform Metrics - The Most Common Way 

What I don't want you to do is solely focus on what is called vanity metrics. Vanity metrics are measures of social media performance that look great on the surface but, once you take a deeper look, are not reflective of a healthy business. There is so much more beneath metrics that show the actual story. 

The cornerstone of vanity metrics is follower count. Do not base your social media success on follower account alone. I would much rather you have 500 followers where 100 people buy from you than 10K followers where 100 people buy from you. 

Other platform metrics like reach, engagement, and impressions are important, and like followers should be taken as a part of a larger puzzle.

Judging your social media success by looking at metrics is the easiest and most common way beauty professionals determine if social media is something they need to invest their time and money in.

If you are interested in learning the average beauty industry metrics for social media, check out this post from Rival IQ https://www.rivaliq.com/blog/social-media-industry-benchmark-report/

USING LEADS - Email Sign-Ups & Contact Forms

Social media is an excellent tool for getting leads. Leads included using contact forms, newsletter sign-ups, and website visits. These are easily tracked with the right software, which is probably included in your website analytics. 

 I have an ongoing boosted post on Instagram to gather email addresses for my newsletter. I spend $5 to $10 a day promoting a post that offers a free email template download in exchange for their email address.  

These leads are critical to my success because, on average, for every $1 you spend on email marketing, you get $42 in return. I highly encourage you to create a lead-generating post (think social media-specific discount). 

Creating just one good lead-generating post makes your social media efforts a success. If there is one thing you take from this article, it needs to be creating a lead-generating social media post.

If you want more information on lead generation, check out this article by Exploding Topics https://explodingtopics.com/blog/lead-generation-stats and scroll down to the social media section.

THE MONEY WAY - Products Sold & Appointments Books

The best way to determine if your social media is performing is to tie your social media activity to money in your bank account - products sold and appointments booked/completed.

While platform metrics, email sign-ups, and contact form inquiries correlate to business growth and a profitable social media strategy, products sold and completed appointments directly tie to whether or not social media is working and worth your time.

 The Big Guys Way: How companies investing hundreds of thousands in their social media determine if their social media works.

My many years working for international companies taught me this - the bottom is what matters. But you are not a multinational conglomerate and know there is more to life than the cold hard bottom line. I refer to this as the "accounting" method because it is managed by accounts in budget departments.

The accounting method is based on facts and figures. This is often used in larger corporations where proving the value of social media to an accounting and budget department is critical for keeping your job.

Here is my beauty business version of this accounting method. This method is easy to understand and use in your everyday beauty business.

The Accountant/Corporate Way Of Determining If Your Social Media Is Working - Spa & Med-Spa Style:

There is a simple mathematical formula for determining your return on investment (ROI) for social media.

(Profits From Social Media - Cost)/Cost X 100 = ROI

$2000 - $750/$750 * 100 = x (ROI)

$1250/$750 * 100 = x (ROI)

1.66 * 100 = x (ROI)

166% = ROI

This method requires you to track precisely how much you spend on social media (ads, software, Canva, and any outside help) and specific dollar amounts attached to the product or services someone purchases or books through social media. Your booking, accounting, and/or website software easily provides this information. 

Using the above example as a guide:

You make a NET profit of $2000 from an Instagram Ad for a Vitamin C Facial. You know this because you know how many facials were booked by clicking on the Instagram ad, and you know your NET profit from each facial. You spent $750 promoting the ad. Using the above formula, your ROI percentage is 166%, so for every $10 you spend, you make $16.60 back (????)

The math behind determining whether or not your social media is genuinely working can be overwhelming and, to be honest, dull. Still, it is critical if you really want to understand if your advertising money is being used most effectively. 

Digging in the weeds, looking at metrics and dollars in and dollars out, isn't usually something beauty professionals are too keen on doing. The good thing is can hire people like myself or bigger agencies to help you.

If you have yet to reach that level of hiring outside help, using the above measurements, formulas, and linked resources can help you better understand if your social media time and effort are used effectively. 

Social media is the most cost-effective manner of advertising and a key to any successful marketing plan. You must determine the best social media strategy for you and your beauty business. Understanding what works and what doesn't work is critical.  

Figuring this out isn't exciting or fun for many people, but doing so allows you to put the right plan in place so you can spend more time doing what you love and are professionally trained to do.

I suggest you hire someone to help you, even if to point you in the right direction and give you benchmarks.