How to measure social media marketing result
All the social media marketing campaigns are carried out to reach varied audience, show and sell the products and services. And for that, we blindly start affirming our presence in all social media channels. We increase the number of posts to ensure that we are being seen and heard. But this is just one part of the whole big campaign, which includes the advertisements we pay heavily for, competitors we want to outrun, never considering professional help as an option.
Where does it land us?
In the end of the day, what matters most is the result. How many people we have reached, how many leads we have generated, how much sales we have made. The measurement of return on investment (ROI) on social media marketing is the only reliable figure that can justify the physical and monetary efforts.
There are two major ways by which we can measure the social media marketing result. The first way is to find out the reach, engagement and following by the physical means of measurements like counting the likes, comments, share, sales etc. The second way is to integrate ‘Google Analytics’ into the website and then track the site activity. The goal tracking in Google analytics enables you to track all your conversion activities like form registrations, downloads etc.
1. To find out the reach, engagement and following: Let’s take up 5 major channels which we use for our social media marketing campaign, viz., Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. These channels are widely used by almost all the businesses to take their marketing campaigns online.
i) REACH: To find out how many people we have reached by using the social media channels:
- Facebook: The number of likes on our post determines the solid viewership; although more people view, than like, and there might be people who have seen but not liked the post, but the only way to find out for sure is counting the ‘likes’. That’ll tell how many people we have actually reached.
- Youtube: Youtube has made it really simple; we can just see the number of viewers of each video. These views directly tell the number of people who have seen our video posted.
- Twitter: Once a tweet is posted, it creates a chain reaction and reaches to people who are already following us, and their followers and then their followers and so on. People who see our posts can like, reply or re-tweet the post. Like and re-tweet shows the number of people our tweet has reached for sure. We can see the numbers and measure our twitter reach.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a great platform for professionals to link with the people pursuing the same profession, or have the skill sets we require for our business. Here also, the posts we send out are seen by our connections and are liked, commented on and shared. Number of likes shows the reach of the post to all the connections, but here, it reaches to the people who are seriously professionals, and so, it matters the most.
- Instagram: Started up as a supporting system for social media channels, Instagram Algorithm has now become a social media channel itself. People click, edit and post the photos and videos on which other people can leave their likes, comments and can also share those in other social media networks. Number of ‘likes’ show the reach of our pictures and videos.
ii) Engagement: Engagement is when people are interested in our post and want to interact with us. This is a major step in lead generation. Engagement can be measured across these social networking channels in the same way as the reach.
- Facebook: The number of comments on our post indicates the engagement of the people interested in our posts. The ‘replies’ to others’ comments reinforces the engagement and we can measure it directly by just crunching the numbers.
- Youtube: Youtube also avails the opportunity for its viewers to Upvote (similar to like in other social media channels), Downvote (dislike) and comment on the videos, which shows their engagement to our videos.
- Twitter: A tweets attracts most of the attention when it is hash-tagged with the trending topics and in twitter also, the ‘replies’ indicate their engagement. Also, if someone clicks on the links we have provided, it makes their engagement more evident.
- LinkedIn: LinkedIn offers an opportunity of slide sharing to its users and if someone comments on, or shares the slides, it shows their engagement on our posts. This can effectively lead up to building connections with the like minded professionals.
- Instagram: In Instagram, the videos and pictures that are posted can be shared on various social media channels and that shows the engagement of the viewers.
iii) Following: All the social media channels provide this facility for a user to follow, connect or subscribe the person, page, or event. This shows the interest of people, which helps in lead generation, which gives us the window for us to convert our leads into sales. Also, the follow up can be done by the leads using the other means of contacting, like emailing or calling on phone and hence, the number of phone calls, emails and messages can also directly tell how many people saw us on the social media channels and are now interested in our work.
2. To integrate ‘Google Analytics’ into the website: One can integrate ‘Google Analytics’ into the website and then track the site activity. This method will do the mathematics of measuring the total registrations. Google Analytics reports determine the total downloads or registrations or sale as well as the source where that lead came from, hence, giving the complete picture of the social media interaction and conversions by them.
We can identify and set up ‘goal conversions’ within Google Analytics and by that way, we can measure the Return on Investment (ROI) by the means of social media marketing campaign.
The assisted conversion report shows the conversions made by the clicks from social media marketing campaigns. To find the number of conversions made by the assistance of social media, we can open the Assisted Conversions report by clicking on Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels > Assisted Conversions in Google Analytics Report.
The measurement of social media marketing result gives us an insight on how much the social media campaign has been successful, according to which, we can make decisions in future about the investment of time, money and effort in social media marketing and also about the type of campaign, and the content used for the campaign. At last, every effort is being made for generating sales, and if we devote time in measuring our ROI, it gives us a clear direction to move in, for our next marketing campaign.
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