How To Measure The Impact of Social Media Marketing

What are the measures of success for social media?

The most common question I get about social media is "How do you measure the success of a social campaign?" The answer is quite simple. What are you trying to do with your social media efforts? Depending on who you're talking to, the answer can vary - but the bottom line? "Sell more products, duh." Ok, so no-one has said those words to me, but you get the picture. 

Of course, the ultimate objective is to sell more. But the customer journey isn't always as simple as See an Ad, Buy the Thing. That's where social media comes in. I'm a believer that social media has a role to play in all parts of the customer journey. From discovering a brand to planning a purchase and eventually becoming a loyal advocate, your social media can reach customers at all of these key moments and beyond. 

The skill to knowing how to measure a social media campaign is aligning your activity to your objective. For instance, if your objective is to drive brand awareness, the activity you need to run will be considerably different than if your objective is to drive purchase consideration on your website, or if your goal is to grow your email subscriber list. Likewise, the performance indicators you use to measure your activities will differ, depending on the objective. For example, it's not particularly helpful to measure an awareness campaign by tracking link clicks, nor is it beneficial to measure an en engagement campaign solely by reporting on impressions. 

I know, there's a lot to consider. To help break it down, I've put together a quick guide to the four key objectives that social media can help you achieve and how to measure their success. 

Brand Awareness

You want more people to know who you are. You need to reach as many potential eyeballs as you can. (Note, this doesn't mean serving your social media ads to anyone & everyone - but it provides an opportunity to reach the widest group of potential customers in your target demographics.)

What activities to run: Social Media ads with an awareness objective, Influencer campaigns.

How to measure the success: # of Impressions, CPM. 

Traffic

You want to get people who know about your product / brand to go to your website or a retailer site to consider purchasing.

What activities to run: Social Media ads with a link click objective, targeted influencer campaigns using influencers who have experience driving to retail.

How to measure the success: Link clicks, CPC. 

Conversion

You want people who have already considered buying your product to make a purchase. 

What activities to run: Social Media retargeting ads, targeted influencer campaigns with a strong call to action.

How to measure the success: Website purchases, Retail sales data, AMZ attribution for Amazon. 

Engagement & Brand Sentiment

You want people to feel good when they think about your brand and be a loyal customer & advocate. 

What activities to run: Boosted organic social media, content that adds value to your customer, e.g. Q&As with experts, Instagram Live events, competitions.

How to measure the success: Engagements, brand sentiment, comments.

If you'd like more info on how to set your social media campaigns for success, get in touch! We'd love to hear from you.