A Guide to Measuring the ROI of Your Social Media Marketing

How to properly measure if you’re getting your money’s worth

It's great to spend a fortune on social media marketing and advertising, but it's only good if you see conversions afterwards.

Vanity metrics (comments, shares, likes, for example) can mess up measurement metrics and make it difficult to decipher a real return on investment.

So, how can you measure it correctly?

• Clearly Define Your Social Media Goals
• Companies can achieve dozens of goals using social media.
• Here are some of the most common and measurable goals.

Brand awareness

This tracks the growth of fans and followers in your company profile, growth in engagement, and brand endorsements over time.

If everything has increased during a given period, you are well on your way to achieving your marketing goals. If growth remains the same, your brand does not reach a wider audience and therefore generates no return on investment.

Website traffic

Choose a specific web page or section of your website where you want to increase traffic (for example, a product page, a blog post, the contact page), and then take a measurement.

While checking the overall traffic on the website is great, it's a good idea to limit and define the areas to which you want to direct your traffic on social networks, so you can measure traffic growth and referral sources.

New lead generation

Social Media Lead Generation is about turning your social media efforts into new prospects.

This includes getting people to:

1. Fill out a contact form.
2. Register for webinars
3. Download digital documents, such as an e-book, report, white paper, or other type of content.
4. Subscribe to your company newsletter.

Social media posts can include links to a landing page containing a contact or registration form and tracking the number of new form refills from a specific social media listing source.

You can also track clicks on publications and do calculations to determine conversions and acquisition rates per prospect.

Work with influencers

All businesses (large and small) should focus on working with influencers on social media. Influencers can be a real asset to your brand.

Make it a goal to identify and create working relationships with new influencers.

Generate sales

The simple fact of deciding that you want to generate "sales" via network publishing is not specific enough. Think of a precise number of sales you want to generate and their type.

A realistic goal could be to generate 50 new branded clothing sales via Instagram. Choose the product or service and determine the number of sales you want to make.

Think of trying a 30-day social media campaign, or maybe stretching it for a quarter.

Specific goals, such as direct product sales, may take a little more than a week to produce, especially if you decide not to budget for social ads.

In addition, you will want to measure statistics over time to adjust your strategy if you do not reach your weekly goals.

If your first attempt at social media marketing is not producing the return on investment you expect, analyze the campaign's stats and review what worked and what did not work to improve your strategy.

Develop an Actionable Social Media Strategy Based on Your Goals

Different social media goals are associated with specific strategies.

To achieve a 20% increase in sales on social networks, you will need to use a strategy completely different from that used to reach a new goal of influence.

As with any digital marketing strategy, efforts must match the goal.

Below are some realistic strategic steps to help you achieve the social media goals mentioned above.

Increase brand awareness

• Increase social media viewing by 50% (if you usually post three to five times a week, plan to post six to ten times to increase the overall reach).
• Follow at least eight new people on social media a day (depending on your clients and industry).
• Engage with all those who mention your brand by commenting on their commitment or following them.
• Post ads on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter to increase the reach of your posts and attract new subscribers.

Increase website traffic

• Run a specific marketing campaign that targets visitors to the website on Facebook.
• Update the bio links on Instagram and Twitter to the page to which you are trying to increase traffic (target page).
• Include shortcut links in all social media posts leading to the target page.
• Add clear calls to action in each social media post that prompts to visit the target page.
• Implement an advertising campaign on social networks to direct users to the target page (converting traffic to the website).

Generate new leads

• Run a new marketing campaign that targets specific visitors to the website on Facebook.
• Encourage yourself to fill out forms in social media publications.
• Run ads on social networks with goal conversion to generate new leads.
• Partner with different companies to promote social media networking and always include links to the landing page form.
• Include short links on all your social media posts leading to the landing page form.

Work with influencers

• Make a list of 50 new social media profiles to follow on Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. They must have at least 8,000 subscribers and be adapted to your sector of activity.
• Follow and interact with these social media influencers by commenting on their publications and making contacts with them.
• Use measurement tools (eg SEMrush) to determine who is talking about your brand. Then contact them and discuss sending them products and their comments.
• Generate sales via social media posting
• Post remarketing ads in your customer database by encouraging them to buy a new line of products.
• Schedule social media publications that inform subscribers of this new product line and how they can make a purchase.
• Include a discount or promotional code in your social media postings with a link to the product line website page.
• Send the content of this article to the influencers with whom you collaborated and ask them to share it on their social networks to promote sales of this new product line.

Analyze Metrics to Identify Which Goals Were Met

Some goals will be easy to measure, such as the number of new influencers you've earned. Others may be more difficult to locate.

However, great tools and settings will help you determine if you have achieved your goals through your social media marketing efforts.

Let's look at our five initial objectives and the indicators or tools we can use to measure the return on investment effectively.

Increased brand awareness

Review the scope and engagement indicators in your social media analysis and see if the scope has expanded.

Use measurement tools to track brand mentions and determine if the number of positive mentions has increased.

Increased website traffic

• Check out Google Analytics for increased website traffic.
• Examine sponsorship sources to determine if the most common source of website traffic comes from your social media networks.

Gain new leads

• Search your CRM database for new leads and identify the track sources (do they come from social media?).
• Check out post-click engagements and see how many clicks are coming from social media and heading to landing pages.

Find new influencers

• How many contracts with influencers have been signed?
• See the Excel documentation for progress notes on building relationships with new influencers.

Generate sales from social posting

• Check out social media advertising campaigns for ROI.
• Track users' visits to the referral source, landing page, and conversion.
• Use Google Analytics to track the number of sales goals achieved.

Continue to Track and Measure Your Social Media Metrics

Even if your goals are not achieved in a timely manner, it's essential to keep track of your social media statistics.

The social media landscape can change overnight, so it's helpful to have a clear view of what's happening at all times and to identify when new ROI opportunities present themselves.

Here are some of the variables that can change on social media over time:

1. The tone of the conversations people have on your brand, whether positive or negative.
2. New and potential influencers with whom you should connect, who are already talking about your brand.
3. Discover the type of content your fans prefer to publish (image, video, short text, descriptive text).
4. What are the days of the week when you get the most commitment so you can refine your social media marketing efforts to the days and hours that generate the most buzz.
5. What kind of message do you broadcast and what type of messaging do you dig into your subscribers - is it aligned properly?

Social media offers a wealth of marketing opportunities for your business.

I hope you have found the information in this document useful and wish you good luck in your future social media marketing campaigns.