Is your social media campaign worth the investment?

If you’re running a social media campaign, no matter how large or small, proper analytics are always beneficial. When you develop a strategy to measure the Return of Investment (sometimes referred to as the Rate of Return) of your social media campaign the information gleaned can be used to inform best practice and ensure that the money you spend on social media is worth the paper it’s printed on. Take a look at these top tips on the best methods for measuring the ROI of your social media campaign and ensuring that any campaign you run is well planned, maintained and developed by all those involved in its implementation.

Tip 1 – Focus on the bottom line

Although those on the front line may utilise a hugely complex web of analytics to inform campaigns, business leaders in the boardroom will be far more interested in the basics, so focus your data on three or four different elements. CEOs and managers will want to know the company’s social media is driving revenue, increasing traffic and improving the health of the business. For campaigners to make the most of metrics they should concentrate on key performance indicators like increased inbound traffic, conversions, conversation share and increased subscribership.

Tip 2 – Analyse changes and measure what matters

The final step of any analysis of metrics should be concerned with asking why. For example, your analytical data may highlight that your social media campaign has led to an increased share of voice for your company, but to get the most value from this information it’s essential to consider the causes of any positive or negative data collated.

Tip 3 – Consolidate your metrics

Big Data is the current buzzword amongst internet professionals and as technology develops, the various information across the web will begin to be analysed as a whole. This means that business owners should look at qualitative and quantative results based on their entire SEO strategy and not just their social media campaign.

Tip 4 – Break goals into bite sized chunks

At the outset of any Social Media campaign the goals of that campaign should be established and shared with all staff. However, for many firms the goals they set out, such as increasing subscribers by 50% within a year, can seem like a daunting prospect to employees. Smaller goals are more manageable and much less intimidating, so if your SM ambitions are on a huge scale, break them into bite sized chunks to give your staff a better chance of success. Any staff member who has involvement with the campaign is well versed in relation to the goals set out and how they should be achieved.

Tip 5 – Track success with campaign IDs

For a campaign to work, any social media output needs to be carefully tracked so its impact can be properly analysed. This means for example, that a tweet can be tracked from when it’s pushed out, through the internet and back to the site, so analytics professionals can ascertain the increased percentage of visitors the tweet led to. One way to do this is to utilise bit.ly to assign social media output with campaign IDs that can be tracked back to the pipeline. Tracking IDs are already widely used by large companies but as the world of eCommerce becomes increasingly competitive, it’s becoming more and more important for even the smallest business to develop professional and valuable social media strategies. To make the most of any social media campaign and achieve a worthwhile ROI, business owners can utilise a four part strategy to measure success by assigning unique IDs.

Tip 6 – Create an ROI dashboard

You can utilise software to create an ROI dashboard on your network so that staff can have constant access analytics which can help to inform their practice and help keep the overall goals of the company at the forefront of employees minds.