68% of social marketers find it difficult to compare the results of social media marketing campaigns, and it’s not hard to see why. How do you measure a brand’s strength in people’s minds? If social media is a conversation, how do you measure the value of that conversation? A great conversation may lead to a customer recommending a blog to their colleague over lunch, and she in turn to her partner over dinner – how do you measure that offline activity?

So while a social media strategy is no different to any other marketing tool in that its success or otherwise needs to be measured, its conversational nature means some of the greatest benefits cannot be measured in clicks or dollars. And (take a deep breath, marketers) that’s okay.

So what does success actually look like?

Success is best measured against a set of objectives that have been clearly defined before setting foot in the social media environment, and that are aligned with the broader business objectives. This will be different for everyone and depends on the type of business involved and social media tools implemented. Some starting points might include:

  1. Traffic – to a website, a blog and the number of Twitter followers or Facebook friends. These are raw numbers that can be used to gauge the growth of activity around social media channels.
  2. Interaction – how many comments were made? Reviews given? If people are responding via social media channels, then the content is working.
  3. Search marketing – social media channels can be used to increase SEO rankings, so measure relevant key terms before beginning and as a metric after launching social media channels.
  4. Sales – measure the traffic from social media channels to the online store, and the conversion to sales.

Once implemented, it’s important to monitor progress and adjust a digital strategy as you go. Whether via an agency or an internal team, it’s critical to the success of social media channels that the execution is a) working and b) informed by the latest developments in digital.

The digital landscape is the broadest of churches – if it exists, it’s online somewhere. That means there is already a community of people out there who would like nothing more than to engage with your business about what you do, how you do it and who you are. Social media is simply a way of reaching out to these communities and starting a conversation, and anyone can do it.

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