Goals and Objectives: Measuring Social Media Campaigns

Social media is growing faster than ever, and it is so important for business to have social media goals, and include social media in their marketing campaigns. Social media is the best form of “free” advertising today, and is considered “word of mouth” advertising.  There is no better way to promote your brand then to have people talk about it and pass it on to others.

Before creating a social media campaign ask yourself these important questions: why you are considering including social media in your overall marketing campaign in the first place. How will your efforts impact your revenue and grow your business? How much engagement are you willing to give to social media? What do you hope your measurable outcome will be? and What social media platforms align with your objectives?

Here are three simple ways you can measure your social media results and effectiveness:

1. Stay Organized

Map out a content calendar. One very easy way to brainstorm is to use a content calendar. This will create a framework that will make your content strategy come to life, and become less overwhelming and more actionable.

2. Listen

When life gets busy in the office sometimes it is hard to take a step back and listen to what your customers have to say on social media. If you are not listening to your customers, you’re missing the point of social media. This is crucial!

Many social media sites allow you to offer real-time customer service. Twitter is the best for this tool, take advantage of it. When you are practicing real-time marketing you can learn things like:

• Exactly how many people are engaged

• If your followers are growing

• The issues customers are experiencing with your business

• What’s broken in your business

By listening you can identify and use the information gathered to implement improvements in the business. If people have things to say good or bad, it means that they are engaged and they want you to know how pleased they are or they want to see your business make a change for the better.

3. Use measuring tools

Many social media sites already have tools in place so you can review what was effective and what was not. Facebook has great analytics, familiarize yourself with this data, and keep detailed monthly reports. Through seeing what is successful and what is lacking, you can better determine what type of advertisements and information customers want to hear about. For social sites like Instagram, and Pintrest it might be a little more difficult to track your analytics. There are tools available so that you are never missing a click or a like.

Some tools include:

• Google Analytics

• SproutSocial.com

• Engagor.com

• HootSuite.com

• Radian6.com