Whenever a business launches a new initiative, the most important thing that the business must be able to assess is the effectiveness of the initiative. Without understanding the results or ROI of said initiative, how do you know if it is working? Or where to pivot?
This same wisdom extends to corporate social media initiatives; you need to be able to measure your organization’s social media success. For the early years of social, most businesses created accounts to be visible and would sporadically share content.
That has changed and social media is more strategic and valued, considering that’s where audiences hangout and look for information to solve their job challenges. Many companies are getting their workforce involved in the social conversations. A great example of this is Dell, who has become one of the leaders in being a social business.
However, while traditional business initiatives can be measured by single, objective outcomes such as higher sales numbers, success on social media is measured through much less obvious, more nuanced measures. Businesses that truly understand how to measure success on social media are poised to benefit the most from their investment in this arena.
Here are the most important things that businesses need to know to effectively measure the success of their corporate social media strategy today.
Track the leads you generate from social media
This might be pretty obvious, but I’ve found many companies don’t necessarily keep good track of the leads generated from their social media efforts.
Every link that you share and post on social media should be trackable, so you know which customers were referred to your business through social media vs. some other platform. This is where adding UTM parameters to your links will be useful.
That way, in your Google Analytics or marketing automation platform, you can see where your leads are coming from and keep tabs on all metrics related them.
Count up your Google searches
Believe it or not, customers who are exposed to a brand through social media are much more likely to go searching for it online later. It’s why it is important to not only post new material on social media but older blog posts and content as well.
Getting your brand visibility up on social keeps your company in your audience’s mind, many who may end up searching for your brand later. So keep track of who’s searching for your brand to help you understand how your social media strategy is influencing it.
Measure the level of audience engagement
To really know how invested your audience…
