Social media makes up 10.7 percent of marketing budgets. Yet, many brands don’t know how to measure their social ROI. Do you?
If you’re unable to map your social efforts back to the bottom line, your likes, favorites and shares will never be taken seriously. You need to show how your social strategy impacts your business to show executives and stakeholders its value.
Is your measurement strategy missing the mark? You may be making one of these three mistakes:
1. You aren’t setting measureable goals.
The first step in social measurement is determining what your overall goals are. These should be more than just “doing better on social” or “increasing leads.” They need to be specific and quantifiable.
Work with sales, client services and other departments in your organization to get a feel for everyone’s needs. For example, sales may want more conversion-based goals, such as more filled out contact forms, while client services may be more concerned with engagement, such as more positive interactions.
Look at your current traffic, leads, interactions and conversion to identify the areas that may need some work. Set specific metrics for how you will reach those goals. For example, if you want to increase your reach, look at your total number of followers over a given period. Then, set a realistic goal for achieving it within a specific time frame.
2. You aren’t on the right platforms.
If you aren’t engaging your audience on the platforms they prefer, you won’t get the results you want from your social strategy. To determine which platforms you should have a presence on, you need to understand how your audience uses social.
For example, a restaurant may not find a lot of engagement on Twitter, but its audience will surely be looking for reviews on Yelp. Research your audience using social listening software and find out not only where they’re looking to engage, but also how they are engaging as well. What types of content are they most likely to interact with?
Involve your entire organization when deciding what platforms to keep and which ones to nix. With insights from other departments, you’ll be more aware of each segment of your audience.
3. You aren’t using the right tools.
If you’re using multiple tools to measure your social ROI, you’re probably getting disjointed, inaccurate or incomplete data. You need to invest in one intuitive tool that integrates all aspects of your social strategy, including publishing, monitoring, analytics and more.
Millions of tweets are sent out each day, and your brand shouldn’t have to sort through all of them manually. With a comprehensive tool, you’ll save time on tracking and analyzing your social efforts. Instead, you’ll be able to spend more time improving those social efforts.
Images via Pixabay: 1, 2, 3