Signing up for a social media account is just one part of the process of social media marketing. The other part involves monitoring the interactions you have with your target audience, as well as how frequently people are talking about your brand on the web. Then, there’s also the matter of directing people over to your website. Are they clicking the link that will take them to the sites?
One of the first things that you need to do is to install social media archiving tools in your computer. These tools will capture and archive real-time social media scenarios that you can use to measure the effectivity of your social media marketing campaigns.
Next, you need to create a spreadsheet to keep track of your data. You can share this spreadsheet with your marketing team so that everyone can see how the data changes over time. There should be a column or a row dedicated to each of the social media platforms you are active on. For example, there should be entries for your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn accounts.
Volume
This is the easiest metric to measure. You need to check daily if the number of your followers is increasing, how many are being added each day, what days they usually become active in following your account, and how many people are talking about your brand. You need to track how these numbers change with time. If you notice that people are mostly talking about your brand at night, then you need to retarget your marketing strategy during that time.
Reach
How many people do you reach through your social media accounts? Where are they from? What do they do after engaging with you? Do they visit your site? Do they read blogs from your website? Do they follow you? Do they purchase items from your online shop? Understanding just how far and wide you can cast your net will give you a better idea of what kind of messages you should be disseminating.
Content
You also need to analyze the content that you post and share to your social media followers. Which of your content are they mostly engaging with? Do they like commenting and sharing unique blog posts, or are they more interested in the content created by others? The latter refers to your page-sharing articles written by industry experts on a particular subject matter that concerns you. Other kinds of content are reviews, testimonials, recommendations, publications, guest posts, and infographics.
Engagement
There are two types of engagement that you need to watch out for: generating interaction via replies and comments and spreading messages via retweets, shares, and posts. The first one gives you a direct line to your consumers. You can reply to comments and interact directly with your potential customers. The second one spreads the message about your brand. It brings your core marketing strategy to another network.
To effectively measure your social media activities, you need to be consistent and well-prepared. Do not miss out on a day wherein you’ll forego monitoring how your content has been consumed or whether there have been additional social media influencers who suggest your brand to their followers. You need to be on your toes and ready to pounce when the right opportunity arrives.
