How to Measure Success in Your Social Media Marketing

Social media is here and it seems wherever you go online, you hear about your absolute need to use it, participate in it, and if you don’t do it — you’re losing out, right?  Yes and no.  The most important question, one that tends not to be on the minds of most using social media is how exactly do you measure success in your social media marketing?  Friend, that is a loaded question.  Some social media experts will tell you it’s impossible, you can’t measure the dynamic nature of social media.  Other experts will tell you it’s as easy as measuring this and that.  Well, I say, their both right and their both wrong.  Huh?!

Measuring Success in Social Media Marketing

Measuring success in your social media marketing is like any other form of business decision making process, you’ve got to understand what your doing, where you want to go, how you plan to get there, and as you proceed, are you getting where you need to go by doing what you’re doing.  There also needs to be some type of plan that determines how to leverage what you’re doing right and how to correct what’s not working.  In real-life  It looks something like this:

1. Define your business objectives and how social media marketing can help you achieve your goals. If you’re just getting into social media because everyone else is doing it… then I’ve got a bridge you might want to check out.  Seriously, if you don’t understand what social media can do for your business, you shouldn’t do it.  You’ll only be wasting  your time — chances are with very little quantifiable results.  Big mistake, especially in this economy with the type of competition that exists online, globally.
2. Clearly define your social media audience and whether YOUR target audience is even participating in social media. This is a big one.  Most small businesses and solopreneurs, even experienced bloggers just assume their audience is actively participating in social media.  Not so.  In fact, most of your audience is likely not participating in social media and if they are, they are certainly not on all the new, shiny sites.  Find out where YOUR audience is and participate there.
3. Find out HOW your audience is participating in social media. As they say, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.   Of course, there are uses in social media that won’t follow this, such as using Twitter for customer service.  However, if you’re joining social communities, be sure to participate at the same level and with similar behaviors that your audience is.  Social media is about fitting into the communities, not infiltrating them and shoving your sales pitch down their throats.
4. Based on your objectives and the social media data of your audience, set up a social media activities calendar… and stick to it. Too many small businesses and solopreneurs get carried away in social media activities that do nothing for their objectives and bottom line.  Create a schedule based on your objectives and stick to it.
5. Review your success, based on specific measurements related to your company objectives and determine any successes, opportunities, and misses you are experiencing. This means, don’t set it and forget it.  Social media marketing requires active monitoring and review, to ensure a continual process of improvement.  The point of social media marketing is to get results based on your objectives, not just to be there because it’s all the rage.  Without understanding what’s working, what’s not, and missed opportunities, you’ll never be able to measure accurately the success of your activities.

Measuring Succcess in Your Social Media Marketing Does NOT Look Like:

• It’s not just about the traffic. Yes, traffic is good, but social media traffic can be significantly different than your usual Google or PPC traffic.  Their behaviors can be different and the mindset in activities is likely very different.  You may be getting a ton of traffic from social media, without any real return on your efforts.
• It’s not just about the sales generated. Social media marketing contributes to many more things in your online business, that indirectly affect sales — but you can’t necessarily track sales directly to some social media marketing activities.  Other uses of social media include online branding, reputation management, search engine optimization and marketing, and more.  These are not easily quantifiable in terms of sales.  Just because you can not link your activities to sales, does not mean your strategies are not successful.
• It’s not just about generating quantifiable leads. The peculiar thing about your social media audience is that their behaviors in social media can be very different than when those same people search Google or respond to a sales pitch.  Just because they are not directly signing up for an opt-in list or providing you with their contact information for marketing — does not mean your social media strategies are not working.

For the rest of the week, I’ll be covering specific tools and keys to measuring your success in social media marketing. Stay tuned and feel free to share your resources and input, I’d love to hear from you!

Photo Credit:  AloshBennett on Flickr

Helpful Resources to Measure Success in Your Social Media Marketing:

Social Media is About Communities Not Technology

Social Media Optimization is Key to Blog Marketing

Social Media Optimization and Social Proof

Social Networking and Social Media Optimization

Social Marketing Metrics by Jack Humphrey

Monitoring Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing ROI - Metrics and Analytics

Enjoy!

Related Diva Posts:

• Social Media Marketing is Leverage King on the Net!
• Conversational Marketing for Solopreneurs… Client Study Updates.
• Is your website Social Media Marketing Ready?
• Your social media marketing audience is different, treat them accordingly.
• Social Media Marketing is not a One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Online Marketing

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