Social Media is an ever evolving tool with many facets and different platforms that can frankly be a little overwhelming. There are some simple ways you can work on maximizing your ROI – Return on Investment – with these.

First of all, it’s important to stay consistent. One of your most valuable tools is your branding. Make sure your logos, colors, and themes are the same across all platforms. Otherwise you’ll confuse your audience and can even be misconstrued as different companies.

Be yourself – clients respond better when they know who is behind the business. This creates a more personal relationship and a strengthened sense of loyalty. If consumers wanted to see cut and dry business ads, they could watch commercials. With social media, these consumers have the power to follow and unfollow and they’re much more likely to stick with you if they feel they have a personal relationship. Through your company page, you should interact by liking posts, sharing links, posting pictures, etc. On a similar note, it’s important to engage your audience – that’s the whole point of social media. You can do this by asking for feedback and being responsive to it, creating a Q&A section, and providing input on discussion boards. On Instagram, you can ask consumers to post photos of them using your product and re-post it. We’d also recommend posting at different times and days and tracking when you’re seeing the most interaction. Also, feel free to cross-promote your other social media accounts.

Marketing is ever-changing, and the most apparent requirement is that you should go mobile. This year has seen more consumers accessing the internet through their mobile device than their desktop computer, so make sure everything you do is mobile-friendly.

Another tenant of social media is to keep it simple. Don’t create an information overload. Focus on value and quality. The quality of your content is what’s going to keep them coming back. Use a variety of channels like video, blogging, photos, and posts, but always be concise and relatable. Be useful to your consumers, and make sure they see the value in being one of your followers.

What’s most important is that you stick with it. While social media is great for sales generation, its real power lies with creating brand awareness. Just because you’re not seeing a direct ROI from social media, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t responsible for creating revenue for you. Brand awareness is probably your most important tool, and consumers will come to a name they know and trust.