Measuring social media marketing success isn’t common knowledge. There are many instances of startups accidentally posting at random without much analytics behind it. The truth is, social media marketing isn’t just about posting on a whim. 

To gain the coveted success of a viral social media campaign, a marketing team must collaborate and analyse the data provided before making any decisions. A great social media marketing strategy would result in maximised ROI, brand visibility, authority, and many other benefits.

But how does one go about measuring the efforts of your marketing team? There aren’t a lot of guides out there discussing how to do it. Luckily you found yourself right where you need to be to learn how!

Below are the top 10 ways to accurately measure the success of your social media marketing efforts!

What is Social Media Marketing?

To create an accurate method of measuring social media marketing success and engagement, it’s best to learn what it does for your company and what it's all about. 

Social media marketing is using specific platforms dedicated to personal use by users and advertising your products. Think of social media platforms as digital hubs where people converse, post, discuss, and engage with their interests.

Advertising your brand on social media allows users to come across your products or services based on the algorithm of their interests. This means that those likely to be interested in your brand will come across its advertisements and posts.

What is the Importance of Social Media Marketing in Businesses?

The reason for measuring social media marketing success is to ultimately learn how many benefits you’re reaping from your campaigns. Unlike traditional marketing, social media requires brands to reach out to potential consumers through innovative posts online. The effects themselves can only be felt through results or analytics.

There are many instances where social media marketing has improved a company’s brand reputation and engagement. You can easily notice success by the increase of regular consumers, website traffic, an increase in sales, and a level of authority regarding the product.

All these make a solid background for consumers to trust in your brand’s quality and increase your reputation and visibility on the Internet. Especially now that most people use social media platforms compared to the past decade. 

How do You Measure Success in Your Social Media Marketing Efforts?

There are many ways to measure your campaign’s success. However, it may be confusing to jump right into the social media metrics without any prior knowledge. Below are the most effective ways of measuring social media success and how to navigate and understand the metrics behind them.

Engagement Rate

Engagement is a key factor when measuring social media marketing success. Checking in on the engagement rate of your social media campaign means compiling all the interactions within your content.

Engagements that you can measure include comments, shares, views, and likes. Just like with any other social media campaign measurement, there is an average percentage that is universally known. For engagement rates, a 1-2% rate is the average. Anything above that is considered an extremely successful product of engagement.

Reach and Impressions

There are certain instances when reach and impressions are often misunderstood or even switched. Reach refers to the number of people who saw your content, while impressions refer to how many times these people who saw your content came across it.

The number of reach and impressions your campaign has can determine whether or not your marketing team did a good job. A great sign of an excellent campaign is when your impressions are higher than your reach. This means that people return to your content repeatedly.

Follower Growth

Some methods of measuring social media marketing success don’t include analytical metrics. One of them is follower growth. When building your brand’s digital presence, it’s important to check in on how many followers have chosen to continue learning more about your brand by following it.

Consumers may be following, subscribing, or even including your brand’s social account in their list of things to check in daily. The more consumers interact with your brand this way, the more likely you will achieve a successful digital reputation.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

A popular method when measuring social media marketing success is the click-through rate method. CTR provides information on how many clicks your ads received from attracted users.

There’s a specific formula used when measuring your campaign’s CTR. This method includes taking the number of clicks and dividing it by the number of impressions you have on your particular campaign. The result will be the percentage of your click-through rate.

It’s a beneficial and technical method to estimate where your ads, keywords, and overall campaign require more improvement.

Conversion Rate

Similarly, conversion rates are used when measuring social media marketing success. Some marketing teams prefer to measure their campaigns on their effectiveness in engaging consumers. 

An example of this is when a consumer opens emails you sent, subscribes to your website, registers an account, signs up for giveaways, or buys products. It can also refer to consumers simply adding products to their cart.

The higher the conversion rate, the more effective your campaigns have become. Especially if they were redirected to a landing page.

Social Media ROI

Nothing else can get more professional than calculating your social media ROI. Social media return on investment (also known as ROI) refers to the generated income that comes from your marketing campaigns. 

This includes brand visibility, engagement, sales, and other marketing strategies that increase your brand’s performance. Any funding translated by your company to marketing is considered an investment, its return is then calculated.

As a form of measuring social media marketing success, it’s highly effective. Social media ROI can accurately pinpoint the financial gain received from the effort, money, and time used to create your campaigns. If something is less than ideal, your ROI should be analysed to provide answers on where you need improvement.

Share of Voice

Let’s face the truth: everyone always has competition when building something that matters. The same goes for a business, regardless of its size or growth. The upside to having competition is that you can use them for comparison.

Checkin in on keywords or related topics regarding your services or products is crucial to understanding how much visibility do you dominate in your industry. For example, if a user searches power tools and your brand dominates the SERP pages, that’s a good thing.

This also refers to the number of paid advertising done for your campaigns. Either way, having more visibility compared to your competitors equals a giant success in your marketing campaigns. Not only that, it also increases your brand’s authority over the topics related to your services.

When measuring social media marketing success by using share of voice, you will have to use tools in social media, audience insights, and more. Another way is to divide your metrics by the total number of metrics to see how much you dominate the campaign.

Referral Traffic

There are more uses of social media platforms than just engaging with your consumers at a personal level. It’s also possible for them to be redirected to your company’s website from your social network, which Google recognises as a referral.

Referral traffic is a great tool for measuring social media marketing success. This is because it counts the number of people who come to your website’s domain through specific links instead of searching for it on search engines.

Naturally, this also includes backlinks, which create a sense of authority regarding the topic the campaign or content is advertising or informing.

Customer Sentiment

When measuring social media marketing success, it’s also a good idea to check in on your customer’s feedback. Remember that the reviews of your customers are something potential consumers like to check in with before purchasing and reflect your overall brand reputation.

However, not many know that your customer’s overall satisfaction can be measured equal to the success of your marketing efforts. Customer sentiment is a KPI metric that focuses on the emotions your consumers have regarding their purchases or your business campaign.

Traditionally it’s divided into three groups: positive, negative, and neutral. Should there be an impressive amount of positive reviews regarding your campaign, it’s considered a success. A negative outcome means the opposite and a neutral one should require more improvement.

Social Media Mentions and Brand Awareness

Social media mentions are also an effective method for measuring social media marketing success. This is because your company’s social media performance highlights brand visibility and reputation. 

When someone actively mentions your account through their posts, comments, or replies, it increases your brand’s interaction and engagement with potential customers. These mentions allow other users who can see this interaction to grow curious about your brand and inquire about its products or services.

Another benefit of using social media mentions is its ability to help you pinpoint sudden crucial information that could be potentially utilised or damaging to your brand’s reputation. Depending on the information that’s being mentioned alongside your brand, you can quickly take note of what their feedback is regarding your services.

Conclusion

While these top 10 ways of measuring social media marketing success are valuable information, we understand that it can be overwhelming to startups. At Flexi Digital Marketing, we prioritise your goals and needs as your partner in increasing your brand’s visibility.

Take the time to learn more about measuring and understanding social media analytics! Once you’ve mastered them, you can easily consider your brand’s success secured once you implement them on your social media. Excited to learn more? Continue reading through our blogs for free tips for digital marketing success!