Common Sense: 5 Ways to Measure Social Media
Undoubtedly, somebody has asked you: “How do you know if your social media strategy is working for your business?”
You might have answered: “Because we’ve got more friends, followers and fans than we had before.”
Before what? Before you knew what social media was or how to use it in your marketing mix?
To measure anything, you need to know what you’re starting with. Before you can prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you’ve got a social media strategy and that it’s actually creating a positive affect on your business - you need to find and record the benchmarks.
Start with a basic count - on Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Digg, and anywhere else your brand mentions (social mentions) matter. Also, don’t forget to record your website traffic. Next, take a rough estimate of how many word-of-mouth referrals you get, what kind of customer service you have (be honest with yourself, be true to your brand) and how many inbound weblinks you have across the web.
Before you can compare social media to traditional media - know your current marketing ROI. How much are you paying to make impressions on consumers? What’s the average cost per customer?
Now, you might be ready to answer the question. Consider these 5 facets of measuring the positive effects of social media:
1. Traffic: Quality will beat quantity. Get quality visitors to spread the word and organically build even more (now you can start to think about quantity) traffic. Record your site’s traffic, measure the difference between now, during, and after your social media campaign.
2. Interaction: Participation is the key to engaged customers. Create conversations, user actions, and clicks that matter to the success of your business. Record your interaction and measure the mentions before, during and after your social media activity.
3. Search marketing: The SEO factor shouldn’t be underestimated. Whether you’re running a paid search marketing campaign or you’re concentrating on SEO techniques, record your inbound links and measure their click through.
4. PR: The story matters. The nature of public relations has changed forever. Everyone is part of what we consider great PR, your story can be told and shared easier than ever before. Focus on your story, because your story matters. Record your story, distribute to the relevant channels and measure the story by it’s reach.
5. Leads: Before you can sell better, you need better sales leads. Track the data input and activity of enquiries about your products and services. Record how many leads you’re getting through your site now and then measure after you’ve run a social media engagement tactic.
