Would you like to measure how successfully you're communicating your business message and engaging with your target audience on social media? How about whether you're generating leads or converting sales? The nice thing about social media is that, because it is a digital platform, it is ultimately track-able and measurable.
ENGAGE
A good place to start is to measure audience engagement. You want to track every action your audience takes while on your various social media sites. If someone likes your social media content, they're likely to express this by commenting on it and/ or sharing it throughout their network. Keep track of the number of likes, re-tweets, shares, +1s, etc. Remember, any comments or likes your audience gives on social media are broadcast to all of their followers. This is a great way to broaden your reach and spread your message.¹
CTAs are not just for your website. Using CTAs to promote events and offers will drive your social media audience to deeper engagement with your brand, and provide a clear path down the sales funnel for prospects to follow.
OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS
When certain members of your social media audience are interested enough in your brand to visit your website, use website conversion metrics to analyze their behavior. Make sure to monitor which site pages these prospects tend to linger on. Track whether they fill out any conversion offers, and if so, which ones. The goal here is to separate the tires kickers from the serious leads. Any leads that bother to fill out a conversion offer should be placed into alead nurturing campaign.
Monitoring social-media-derived web traffic also provides you with valuable trend data, such as which website pages or specific offers your social media audience tends to like (or dislike for that matter). Use this information to tweak your social media interaction, content and offers.
If you're able to close a deal from a lead that originated on your social media, make sure to go back and analyze every stage of the process from the first like or comment all the way through to sales conversion. Ask yourself some basic questions such as: Did they redeem a coupon from Foursquare? Did they sign up for my webinar by clicking on a Twitter link? Did they buy a product promoted on my Facebook page? Which demographic or target audience do they fit into?¹
Finally, remember that your social media campaigns should be working in concert with your social media business goals. If you haven't done this yet, stop reading now and get to work. If you have set goals, read on.
DO I MEASURE UP?
Try to walk the cat back from goals to social media activity and see if the two align.¹ Do this by asking some basic questions. For example, if your social media business goal is to increase website conversion, are your social media efforts focusing on the sites on which your audience is spending their time? If so, are you providing the type of content and interaction that will entice them to your website? If you are, do you have a plan to drive these prospects to your site? Links? CTAS? Do you have website analytics in place to measure incoming social media web traffic? You get the point.
I hear a lot of complaining from business owners, executives and marketers about how social media is no good for lead generation and sales conversion. My guess is that most of these naysayers are simply not using social media properly, or at least not to its fullest extent. They are probably not aligning their business goals with their social media strategy. They are not thinking about how their social media and website can integrate to form a broader and more effective sales funnel. They are likely discounting the notion that all of this can be measured, analyzed, and refined.
Most importantly, they are ignoring the fact that other companies doing all of this properly are making a boatload of money. Don't be a complainer. Use social media to its fullest extent and become a converter.
How is your business measuring social media success?
¹ Hubspot, "How to Measure Your Social Media Lead Generation Efforts"