I’m currently attending the Online Marketing Summit (OMS) Conference in Denver, Colorado and have been attending many of the Social Media Marketing and Metrics/ROI Tracking lectures. The information in these lectures are not necessarily ground breaking, however they’re a good reminder for anybody who manages social media marketing that simply posting content and putting up pictures is not enough. In order to attack social media marketing like a traditional marketing campaign, one must track and record social media marketing data as well as take that information and analyze it into an actionable next step.
Since social media marketing is not as tangible as other forms of marketing, how does one track success, and with what metrics? The metrics you decide to track and analyze depend upon your social media goals; so to begin think about three or four primary goals your social media marketing plan should have, and how you would go about tracking that data (i.e. Traffic to Website = Google Analytics, Online Reputation Management = Google Alerts, Community Building = Community Numbers, and Inbound Links to Website = SEO Reports, etc).
Some great resources for tracking Social Media Marketing data are…
Agency Level (Paid) Services:
Low Cost or Free Services:
Once you have information about social media metrics that are meaningful to you, dedicate at least one or two hours per week to sitting down with whatever data you compile and record that data in terms of implications in order to create an actionable next step. Always remember to follow up with those steps and continue to grow your social media marketing efforts with metrics foundation behind it!
