Tools and Metrics for Tracking Social Media ROI: How to Measure Your Success
Tracking social media Return on Investment (ROI) is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, determining whether they are contributing to your business goals and to see how they can be tweaked in the future to improve results.
It’s important to remember that every business will have its own definition of success from its social media depending on the industry and what they want to achieve.
Social media comes under the PR umbrella (unless it’s paid for advertising) so is used to build the brand and reputation of your business, it won’t create overnight sales and so you need to be patient and post consistently.
Here are some tools you can use to measure your social media success:
Analytics Platforms
Most social media platforms offer built-in analytics tools that provide insights into your audience demographics, engagement, reach, and impressions. Examples include Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics, and Instagram Insights. Keep a check on these once a month to see if your goals are being met.
Management Tools
Software like Hootsuite, Buffer and Sprout Social offers advanced analytics that track key metrics across multiple social media channels in one dashboard. These tools provide insights into engagement, reach, impressions, follower growth, and more. Some offer a free account with the paid-for version offering more in-depth analysis.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free powerful tool for tracking website traffic including from social media platforms. You can set up goals and track conversions to measure the impact of your social media efforts on website visits, lead generation, and sales.
URL Shorteners
When posting from management tools such as Hootsuite, you can use URL shorteners like Ow.ly and these allow you to track clicks on any links you share on your social media platforms. Data provided includes the number of clicks, geographic location of users, referral sources, and more, helping you understand which content resonates best with your audience.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Software
Integrating your social media data with a CRM system such as HubSpot can provide a comprehensive view of your customer’s journey from social media engagement to conversion which will help you understand the impact of social media on lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention.
Conversion Tracking
You can set up conversion tracking pixels or tags on your website to follow conversions, such as form submissions, purchases, or downloads, to specific social media campaigns or channels. From this, you can measure the direct impact of social media.
Here is a glossary of what each key metric means when measuring your social media ROI:
Reach and Impressions
This is the number of people who see your social media content and the total number of times your content is displayed.
Engagement
The number of times people liked, commented and shared your content.
Conversions
The number of desired actions by users, such as form submissions, purchases, or sign-ups, attributable to your efforts.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The cost incurred to acquire a new customer through your social media marketing activities.
Lifetime Value (LTV)
The total revenue generated from a customer throughout their relationship with your business.
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
The revenue generated from social media advertising campaigns divided by the cost of those campaigns, as a ratio or percentage.
Using the measuring tools available to you will allow you to track your social media efforts and optimise your strategy. Any decisions you make will be data-driven which will maximise the impact your social media has on your overall business goals.
See our social media management services.
We can take care of your social media marketing. Contact Rachel for a free discovery meeting to find out more: rachel@brandspacemedia.co.uk or call 01227 478605.
