Social Media Marketing: Measuring ROI

Though the results of using social media for your business may not always be immediate, they are no doubt measurable. Find out if all of the effort and time you put into updating your various statuses and interacting through various social media outlets is producing any fruit. By determining your business’s return of investment in social media, you will not only be able to justify the effort you put it, but you will also be able to see the areas that need your further attention. Follow these few steps to accurately evaluate your social media ROI.

1. Create Goals. In order to get the most out of your efforts, you need to set goals for your social media efforts. You need to know what you are hoping to accomplish through your use of social media for your business. Are you hoping to increase the popularity of your company? Discover and interact with new, possible customers? Promote product deals and specials? Once you determine what exactly you want, you can then take the steps to achieve it.

2. Choose Your Outlets. With numerous social media platforms to choose from, you will need to determine which outlet or outlets work best for you and your business. Where is your target audience generally found? Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google Plus, make sure that you are choosing the channels that will match your communication style and reach the customers that you are hoping to interact with. If you choose to embark on more than one platform, make sure to keep the content fresh for each site. Do not repost the exact same statuses for each one. Instead, make sure that you are able to devote enough time and energy into making each outlet interesting and unique for its specific viewers.

3. Track Your Efforts. Once you have established your desired platforms and engaged with them, you will then need to track the results. It will prove beneficial to monitor how many people have viewed your posts, how many leads were generated, the number of conversions made, how much revenue was generated through the platform, and the overall traffic of the sites. Google Analytics is a great, free tool to help you track your on-site traffic, conversion, and sign-ups due to social media outlets. SproutSocial, a subscription-based option, is a program that will generate reports that portray the effectiveness of your posted content. Postific is yet another option with its detailed overviews of your live social media page’s views and engagement.

Regardless of the specific outlets and tracking platform you choose to utilize, make sure to check your sites’ ROI on a regular basis to stay informed as to what is working and what isn’t. Keep in mind that the social media world is constantly changing – continual evaluation is necessary in order to gain the most from your efforts.