Tracking Success Within Social Media Marketing, Part 2

In part one of this two-part blog series, we went over some of the initial factors involved in measuring the success of your social media marketing efforts. Social media marketing is a bit different from other forms of online marketing, functioning as a way to converse with potential clients and allow them to participate in your branding efforts, and it’s vital to be able to track your success and form actionable plans based on it.

At SEO Werkz, we’re here to help with a variety of social media marketing tools and services, in addition to our search engine optimization, PPC, web design and numerous other services. In today’s part two, we’ll look at the specific metrics that matter when evaluating your social media success, plus how to access and actionize these metrics on a regular basis.

Social Media KPIs

When it comes to understanding how various social media posts or ads are performing, the data we want is known as a collection of KPIs, or key performance indicators. We talked in part one about establishing goals for your social media efforts, and KPIs are a way of keeping an eye on those goals and how well you’re accomplishing them.

For this reason, it’s vital to have several foundational elements as part of your KPIs. These include:

• Measure: A metric or way of measuring the performance of a given KPI, generally expressed in areas like engagements, followers, impressions, reach and related conversions or impressions on your website that come from social media leads.
• Data source: There should be zero question of the source of the data being used to provide the KPI measure – the most common source is the social platforms you’re using themselves (more on this in a moment).
• Target: A goal you’re seeking to meet based on the measure you’re using, including a time period in which you’re hoping to reach your goal.
• Reporting frequency: Some KPIs need to be reported on more often than others, though a general goal here is around once a month for average KPIs.

Accessing and Actionizing Social Metrics

As we noted above, most social media platforms today have robust analytics or insights sections that allow you to view detailed information on how your posts or ads are doing. Our team will be happy to explain to you how to access these metrics within each platform.

It’s vital, however, to actively utilize this information rather than just looking at it as a piece of progress. Use the data you have to set future goals for social media and lay the foundation for your entire strategy, especially during a transitional period like the current move from one year into another. Check your performance metrics regularly to see how you’re doing with your goals and where your approach needs to be altered.

For more on the important metrics associated with social media performance, or to learn about any of our SEO, PPC or web design services, speak to the staff at SEO Werkz today.