What Channels See The Most Social Media ROI? [New Data To Inspire Your Strategy]

To be candid, I’ve a love-hate relationship with social media.

Typically, I’m irritated at how exciting these “likes” will be.

At others, I’m ecstatic on the social media promoting ROI (return on funding) my groups can generate. It simply retains me coming again for extra — and I do know I’m not alone on this feeling.

According to our 2024 State of Marketing & Trends Report, entrepreneurs contemplate social media their greatest supply of ROI alongside their web site or weblog. Paid social media content material follows carefully within the second spot.

However what platforms and ways can ship probably the most ROI for your enterprise?

Let’s dive into the most recent findings from HubSpot’s 2024 Social Trends Report to reply these questions and listen to from consultants at Brandfolder, Sprout Social, Rakuten Promoting, and extra.

Desk of Contents

What’s social media ROI?

Merely put, social media ROI is precisely what it seems like — the return on investment you get out of your social media advertising and promoting campaigns.

It measures the outcomes you make or obtain in comparison with how a lot you spend.

Relying in your targets, this may be carried out utilizing plenty of totally different metrics.

As an illustration, in case your objective is to construct model consciousness, you would possibly prioritize metrics demonstrating attain or engagement — corresponding to new followers, impressions, viewers development charge, or social shares.

These are typically the commonest, in my expertise, however different metrics to measure social media advertising and promoting ROI embrace likes, feedback, or gross sales.

Arguably probably the most direct strategy is to zero in on income.

How do you calculate social media ROI?

Our survey discovered that measuring ROI is among the 5 greatest challenges entrepreneurs face with social media. That’s out of twenty-two doable choices.

Numbers and I don’t all the time get alongside, so I get the place they’re coming from. However fortunately, measuring social media ROI is fairly easy.

This system can be utilized with income in thoughts:

Social media ROI = (Whole Income – Whole Funding) / Whole Funding

“Whole income” is the amount of cash generated out of your campaigns, whereas “whole funding” is the amount of cash you place in (like assets, labor price, price per click on, and so forth.).

Whenever you run your calculation, a damaging consequence means you spent more cash in your campaigns than you bought again — womp — and a optimistic consequence means the other.

Let’s illustrate with an instance. Say you spent $500 on social media promoting final quarter and made $1250. Utilizing our system:

= (1250–500) / 500

= (750) / 500

= 1.5

Your social media promoting ROI is 1.5. This implies you made $1.50 for each greenback you spent.

Observe: This system will give your ROI within the greenback quantity, however if you happen to’d prefer it expressed in a proportion, comply with: (Whole Income – Whole Funding) / Whole Funding x 100

Try this helpful guide by my teammate Flori Needle to be taught extra about what social media promoting ROI is and easy methods to calculate it.

Which social media channels have the most effective ROI?

HubSpot’s 2024 Social Media Trends Report discovered YouTube offers entrepreneurs with the best ROI whereas Meta-owned Fb and Instagram path carefully behind.

TikTok follows, however X (previously Twitter), LinkedIn, and different small platforms clock in with lower than 10% of entrepreneurs vouching for them.

This listing is probably going not stunning. The highest 5 are a number of the largest and most energetic social media networks. Plus, these entrepreneurs reported delivering the best ROI when working with influencers/creators.

Let’s dig deeper into the highest 4 to be taught why, and I’ll share some recommendations on getting probably the most out of them.

1. YouTube

Rating third in our listing final yr, YouTube has made an enormous soar to our #1 social media channel for ROI this yr for entrepreneurs — and greater than half (54%) plan on rising their funding within the platform this yr.

However why precisely?

First off, there’s attain.

YouTube receives about 30 billion month-to-month visits and instructions an viewers of over 2.5 billion people (together with over 100 million Premium subscribers). Each technology, from alpha to boomers, is on the platform. This implies there’s a powerful likelihood your viewers is, too.

Our survey discovered that entrepreneurs assume YouTube has the most effective viewers concentrating on instruments. This makes reaching your viewers simple with its paid advertisements.

The platform additionally has a really low barrier to entry.

Organising a YouTube channel is free, and with a smartphone and a few editing software, you’ll be able to create content material at little to no price. Throw in AI and you’ll streamline your effort, too.

This mechanically units you up for an awesome return in your funding.

YouTube can be some of the revered names in video, and shoppers throughout the board have proven a powerful choice for video content material.

Learn how to Get the Most ROI Out of YouTube

Crew up with creators or influencers.

21% of entrepreneurs say YouTube (alongside Fb) gives the best ROI when working with influencers or creators. That’s the best of all platforms.

Learn extra in the Ultimate Guide to Influencer Marketing.

Experiment with each lengthy and short-form content material.

Whereas recognized for its long-form content material, YouTube Shorts can be utilized to capitalize on the person choice for short-form video. (Extra on that later.)

Try our free YouTube Marketing Course to get began.

2. Fb

With over 3 billion monthly active users, Fb is the most well-liked social media platform worldwide — regardless of what a lot of Gen Z may tell you.

Child boomers and Gen X identify it one in every of their prime favourite platforms, whereas millennials and Gen Z frequent it for occasions and Fb Market.

Nevertheless, its massive viewers is only one cause Fb stays the social media platform with the second highest ROI since final yr. And in addition why 53% of entrepreneurs plan to extend their funding in it this yr.

In response to our survey, Fb gives the second-best viewers concentrating on instruments out of all social media platforms, solely shedding out to YouTube by 1%.

The social media large allows you to goal by demographics, pursuits, and even earlier habits — like visiting your web site or attending one in every of your Fb Occasions.

These paid advertisements can seem in a person’s newsfeed or Messenger app and embrace codecs like carousels, boosted posts, and movies. Entrepreneurs may also leverage Facebook Lead Ads to get customers to fill out a lead technology kind with out leaving the social platform. Right here’s an instance from YSL Magnificence.

Nicole Ondracek, HubSpot’s Paid Promoting Senior Advertising and marketing Supervisor, agrees that Fb is an extremely viable channel.

“At HubSpot, Fb is a precious channel for us in driving return on advert spend. A fundamental cause why is that we are able to present our content material to a related viewers utilizing Fb’s viewers concentrating on options. As an illustration, Fb’s lookalike audiences permit us to go after individuals who appear to be our present prospects,” she shared.

“Fb’s algorithm is nice at discovering comparable audiences who’re prone to convert, which is why we see a optimistic return on funding going after these kinds of audiences.”

Learn how to Get the Most ROI Out of Fb

Through the years, I’ve seen Fb evolve into one of many hardest locations to make an natural affect.

Facebook Groups nonetheless show to get traction and also you actually need to keep a presence on the platform with a enterprise web page. However relying in your targets, your effort and time is probably going finest spent on Facebook Ads.

Listed here are a couple of methods to get the most effective ROI with that in thoughts:

Increase posts.

​​Is a put up in your Fb web page getting a whole lot of engagement or clicks? Consider that as a profitable experiment proving your viewers enjoys that content material. It probably has nice potential to carry out properly as an advert via “boosting.”

Study extra on boosted posts.

Strive retargeting.

Retargeting means you’ll be able to goal customers on Fb with advertisements associated to pages they’ve visited in your web site or actions they’ve taken. This helps make the advertisements really feel extra customized, related and, in flip, extra prone to increase your ROI.

Study extra on easy methods to get the most out of your Facebook Ads budget.

3. Instagram

I used to be shocked to see this, however Instagram really fell two spots on our listing of social media platforms with the best ROI from final yr. However no have to panic.

The margin is small, and 52% of entrepreneurs plan to extend their Instagram funding subsequent yr.

With over 2 billion monthly active users, Meta-owned Instagram engages a big world viewers, providing alternatives for many types of businesses.

Entrepreneurs can enhance attain and increase gross sales via non-organic means like Instagram Ads or shoppable posts. In truth, our survey discovered that 71% of entrepreneurs who promote merchandise on Instagram rated it as excessive ROI greater than every other channel.

Plus, 50% of users are more interested in a model after seeing its advertisements on Instagram.

(After being hit with advertisements like this one for Candlelight Live shows for months, I lastly caved in February and it was superb.)

Nevertheless it shines with producing ROI from natural content material as properly.

90% of users follow at least one business on Instagram. And with high-engagement options like Tales, Reels, carousels, and Reside streaming, there’s no scarcity of alternatives to get inventive.

Instagram can be the social platform with the second-highest ROI when working with influencers/creators (20%), lacking the highest spot by simply 1%.

Learn how to Get the Most ROI Out of Instagram

Crew up with creators or influencers.

Instagram missed our spot for the channel with the best ROI when working with influencers by only one p.c, so that they actually deserve some consideration in your social media technique.

Whether or not you’re collaborating on content material, conducting an interview, or just sponsoring a put up, take a while to discover your choices.

Learn extra in our article, “Influencer Marketing Strategy: How to Build a Plan Creators & Customers Will Love [+ Templates]”

Put up Tales with stickers.

We already know Instagram Stories seize eyes with their prime actual property on the prime of the app’s house display, however the advantages don’t cease there.

Stickers will help make content material extra dynamic and interactive by soliciting choices and clicks. You need to use Stickers to create polls, ask and reply questions, or hyperlink viewers to your web site.

Dig deeper into easy methods to increase your efficiency on Instagram with our Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing.

4. TikTok

I can’t misinform you: TikTok remains to be a little bit of an enigma to me.

Not a lot is known about how to please the algorithm, and the varieties of content material that do properly are everywhere in the spectrum — from ASMR to talking-head storytelling.

I’ve a youthful cousin who gained over 20k followers from one video, and she or he nonetheless cannot let you know how or why it occurred.

Regardless of all of the thriller, TikTok remains to be the social media platform with the fourth-highest ROI, in keeping with our analysis.

As of 2024, TikTok has over 1.5 billion monthly active users and is predicted to hit 2.2 billion by 2027. And these customers aren’t passive about their engagement.

They spend an estimated 4.43 billion minutes watching movies every day and 30% of daily users have used TikTok Shop.

This development and passionate engagement has 56% of entrepreneurs planning to extend their funding in TikTok subsequent yr, the best of any platform.

Customers usually are not simply members of Gen Z both, although they certainly lead the pack. In response to Statista, millennials (46%), Gen X (32%), and child boomers (14%) report utilizing the app as properly, although in smaller numbers.

Learn how to Get the Most ROI Out of TikTok

Comply with and interact with traits.

Tendencies are born they usually die on social media, and that is very true on TikTok. One of many best methods to start out making traction on the platform is by hopping on trending sounds and video types.

This manner, you make your self related to conversations which are already occurring relatively than making an attempt to steal consideration from them.

Dunkin is robust on this space, as seen on this video utilizing the viral “Very Demure” audio from creator Jools Lebron:

And if you happen to click on on the audio hyperlink, you’ll be able to see they’re not the one ones.

Strive TikTok Advertisements.

Getting natural traction on TikTok will be troublesome, however to hurry up the method you’ll be able to strive TikTok Ads. We’ve got an article to get you started.

Professional tip: When you’re a HubSpot person, you may as well discover utilizing the TikTok Ads integration with HubSpot. It may be used to:

• Seize TikTok leads within the HubSpot CRM in actual time.
• Join TikTok to HubSpot in below 10 minutes with out utilizing code.
• Instantly attain out to new leads from TikTok once they’re most open to chatting.

Which methods get probably the most social media promoting ROI?

Now, whatever the platform, there are specific traits and truths you’ll be able to comply with to assist get probably the most ROI out of your social media efforts.

Listed here are seven I like to recommend primarily based on our knowledge, my very own private expertise, and perception from different business consultants.

1. Quick-form Video

In response to our survey, 67% of entrepreneurs plan to extend their funding in short-form video within the subsequent yr, whereas 31% will keep their funding.

And why not? 71% of entrepreneurs utilizing the medium already report it has excessive ROI, the best ROI out of all content material mediums.

We additionally know shoppers love video basically, with Sprout Social discovering it the most popular medium on social media. But, many entrepreneurs discover it’s underutilized, particularly in social media promoting.

Adina Jipa, co-founder of Socialinsider, advised us, “A current examine about Facebook video strategy reveals that solely roughly 15% of the content material [on Facebook] is video, whereas images signify 38.58%.

Fb desires to develop into a video-first platform and favors pages with video content material, however for many manufacturers, it’s [primarily] a photo-sharing platform.”

Instagram was additionally public about pushing short-form video content to compete with YouTube and TikTok.

That mentioned, to face out and enhance ROI, contemplate the way you would possibly incorporate video into your social media efforts.

Moreover, contemplate testing out totally different video codecs throughout your channels. As an illustration, Fb permits manufacturers to create vertical video ads for cell customers, which can be wanted for Instagram Story advertisements.

As Jipa says, “You need to use vertical movies on advertisements to get extra clicks. Almost 69% of marketers say video advertisements outperform picture and plain textual content advertisements on Fb, and 81% of Facebook users only access the platform through cell units.

“ these behaviors, utilizing vertical video lets you get extra visibility and enhance the possibilities of getting extra clicks.”

2. Incorporating Humor

In response to our examine, humorous content material leads to the largest ROI of any content material kind.

Utilizing humor in advertising and promoting is nothing new. It’s been a strategic transfer for many years. I imply, I’m nonetheless laughing about this Orbit gum industrial 17 years later:

Humor grabs consideration, is memorable, encourages sharing, and makes you likable total. So, search for methods to include it naturally into your social media content material.

Oreo does an awesome job of incorporating humor and present occasions into its social media content material.

3. Repurposing Content material for A number of Platforms

Must you be posting the very same content material and message throughout all of your social media platforms? In fact not — all of them have distinctive cultures and person behaviors, not to mention technical specs.

However that doesn’t imply you’ll be able to’t adapt and repurpose a single piece of content material for various platforms.

“Far too usually, content material is created for one-and-done campaigns or promotions,” Casted’s CEO and Co-founder Lindsay Tjepkema explains.

“This implies entrepreneurs are working more durable and more durable to supply an increasing number of consistently, but ROI and ROE (return on effort) outcomes are disappointing.”

She continues, “To vary this, we should cease creating content material for content material’s sake and focus as a substitute on creating content material that educates, entertains, and delights that may be damaged down and amplified throughout all different channels not simply as soon as, however many occasions over.”

To repurpose your content across channels, maybe you put up snippets of a full YouTube video on Fb, TikTok, or Instagram.

Alternatively, you could possibly take choose textual content from a weblog put up and repost it in your channels so as to add worth to your current content material. This manner you’re repurposing user-generated content material throughout channels.

There are numerous methods to refresh and re-use content material to enchantment to new audiences uniquely with out exhausting your social group.

Professional tip: Use AI to expedite the method of repurposing. Ask ChatGPT to put in writing tweets for you primarily based on the copy from a weblog. Or, if you happen to use HubSpot, give Content Remix a strive.

With Content material Remix, Skilled and Enterprise-level customers of Content material Hub can repurpose current content material into new codecs.

This may embrace content material hosted on HubSpot (i.e., photographs, social posts, textual content messages, advertisements, and weblog posts) or new content material you add to the device.

4. Aligning your Platform with Your Purpose

It is troublesome to realize outcomes on social with out taking the time to set clear targets to your group. However not all social media channels are good for a similar targets.

To see the most effective ROI from social media, just remember to are selecting the platforms finest suited to your wants.

For instance, if you happen to’re making an attempt to spice up web site natural visitors, YouTube will be the method to go. YouTube is owned by Google, and its movies are proven in SERPs. The video platform can be conventionally held as “the world’s second-largest search engine.”

As Brandfolder’s Senior Digital Advertising and marketing Supervisor Amanda Turcotte advised us, “As a way to obtain a return in your social media funding, you have to have clear targets set earlier than any tactical planning takes place.”

“Numerous social media ways will be utilized in another way to every of the platforms, which means they’re going to produce totally different outcomes. So your targets have to be decided up entrance to make sure they align along with your social technique.”

Professional tip: Use UTM tags for monitoring

The one method to know if you happen to’re really hitting your targets is by having the ability to observe and measure your exercise. UTM monitoring hyperlinks are one of many best methods to do that.

As Matt Janaway, CEO of MarketingLabs, advised us, “Monitoring is now extra essential than ever because of the issues of iOS privateness enhancements, so to essentially yield the most effective ROI, you need to be sure you are using UTM tags on all hyperlinks.”

“This manner, you’ll be able to appropriately observe the efficiency of your campaigns in Analytics and get the info it is advisable to make choices that may drive extra engagement and ROI.”

When you’re a HubSpot person, you’ll be able to create tracking URLs right within the platform.

5. Establishing Consistency

When you‘ve decided your social targets, you’ll need to create a constant model and technique so your viewers is aware of what they will anticipate from you.

What time will you put up? What kind of content material will you put up? What’s going to the posts look and sound like?

Establishing these tips may also assist your group execute extra cohesively and effectively.

Turcotte advised us, “To maneuver your group from technique to motion and preserve everybody on the identical web page, it is essential to develop an everyday posting plan that paperwork your strategy throughout every channel, the place all group members have entry.”

Moreover, Agnieszka Jaśkiewicz, Head of Social Media & Neighborhood at LiveChat shared:

“Digital templates for inventive property — set to the specs of the group‘s core social media platforms — may also add agility to social media managers’ capacity to publish, permitting groups to be extra well timed and rapidly act on new alternatives.”

Professional tip: To make posting constantly simpler, strive utilizing a social posting tool like HubSpot’s Social Inbox Tool or Later.

Jaśkiewicz agrees that creating a technique and utilizing instruments to assist your group’s targets is essential for locating success on social channels.

As she put it, “The best space of ‘untapped potential’ for many manufacturers is available in streamlining inventive workflows.”

“Digital workspaces [and tools] permit creatives and entrepreneurs to collaborate from a central location to stage, revise, and produce content material, limiting back-and-forth communication and pointless steps in manufacturing.”

6. Social Commerce

Over the previous few years, we have seen an increase in social commerce, or the power to make a purchase order with out leaving a social platform.

You’ve probably seen this on Instagram and TikTok (see under). And as we mentioned earlier, customers are taking a liking to it.

Rachael Samuels, Senior Supervisor of Social Media at Sprout Social, advised me she sees social commerce as an awesome alternative to proceed to extend ROI on social channels because it permits customers to take motion the second the urge to purchase hits them.

She shared, “Social commerce not solely offers extra seamless shopping for experiences for purchasers however equips entrepreneurs with the power to point out direct attribution and ROI on account of their efforts.”

Professional tip: Leverage Meta’s Benefit+ Buying Campaigns.

It‘s no secret that Meta’s suite of platforms — specifically Instagram and Fb — packs an enormous ROI punch. Yomi Arokoyo, VP of Efficiency Options at Rakuten Advertising, attributes this to Meta’s highly effective algorithm.

He advised us, “Every social platform has improved its algorithm over time to be extra intuitive and automatic, however none greater than Meta. For instance, with Meta’s Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns, manufacturers can discover new prospects in locations they by no means even thought to look.”

Launched globally in 2022, Benefit+ Buying Campaigns largely depend on AI and automation to search out the suitable viewers to your advertisements (versus handbook concentrating on). On prime of that, it even adjusts advert codecs to know which format performs finest.

To reap the benefits of this new tech, Arokoyo recommends using as a lot inventive differentiation as doable. As an illustration, add outdated inventive or reduce up longer movies into smaller, extra digestible clips. This offers the algorithm extra knowledge to find out which campaigns are efficient.

7. Encouraging Your Staff to Turn into Model Ambassadors

One space of main underutilized social media potential? Your workers.

Many customers in the past, one in every of my duties at a former employer was working the worker advocacy program. In different phrases, I created and distributed copy and supplies to make it simpler for everybody on our group to advertise the corporate’s content material and initiatives on their very own social media.

It will definitely ended as a result of particular person platforms started cracking down on third-party publishing. However for a few years, it dramatically helped increase our attain, visitors, and engagement.

As Casted‘s Tjepkema explains it, “As shoppers, we’re much more pushed to have interaction with user-generated content, but so many manufacturers spend an excessive amount of money and time making an attempt solely to push content material from their very own model.”

“Rally your workers across the content material you are creating and encourage them to share it with captions that present their distinctive and private views. This can be a smart way to assist every member of your group construct their private model whereas additionally amplifying your content material to audiences in a extra genuine manner.”

LiveChat’s Jaśkiewicz agrees with this notion, saying, “[You should] give worker advocacy a

larger seat on the desk in your social media technique, particularly on the subject of LinkedIn.”

“It takes some effort and time to offer folks with the data and indicate the ‘model ambassadors’ mindset within the group — nevertheless, worker engagement is a cheap method to enhance your attain organically.”

That is one thing HubSpot does regularly with the roll out of huge bulletins corresponding to our 2024 Highlight.

Our product group had a complete content material plan main as much as the massive day, together with movies and emails. It additionally created a complete social media equipment to assist others at HubSpot unfold the phrase.

We additionally regularly host HubSpot Worker Takeovers and spotlight “Days in #HubSpotLife” from workers on the HubSpot Life Instagram account.

These campaigns assist present audiences the faces behind the model and create a way of neighborhood and authenticity that you just would not discover with branded content material alone.

To Many Joyful Returns… On Funding

Our survey discovered that the majority entrepreneurs consider proving ROI would be the second-biggest change they’ll face in social media advertising within the coming yr.

Social can clearly have a societal and cultural affect, however that additionally takes time and a spotlight. So, in fact, you want to have the ability to show it’s value it.

Rising your social media ROI gained’t occur in a single day. However by experimenting along with your platforms and the methods and ways we shared, you can begin transferring in the direction of the suitable system to your model.