Social media tracking has always been the struggle for any social media agency. It really is challenging to quantify the emotional response to a social media campaign but at the end of the day, it has to be done. Tangible results are the bread and butter of any reputable social media agency so difficult as it may be sometimes, measuring social media efforts is a necessary evil.
We understand that tracking the success (or shortcomings, knock on wood) of your social media campaign is vital to your overall Internet marketing strategy so we are sharing with you these five new tips for social media tracking, courtesy of the expert folks at Social Media Examiner.
1. Measure traffic referred from other social media channels. For this, our favorite Google Analytics comes to the rescue. Simply go to the Traffic Sources tab, click on Referring Sites and then put in a social network to see how much traffic it brings to your site. The more important next step is to team up with your social media agencyand come up with goals based on the information you gathered.
2. Review your content marketing strategy. At the end of the day, the success of your social media campaign is dependent on your content? What added value do you give your audience? Be warned that the value of your content is not measured by false metrics such as retweets or comments. Your social media agency should be able to keep track of page views, time on page and total pages viewed because these are real indications of robust site activity.
3. Find out your share of voice. Does your social media agency know what your share of voice (SOV) is? Basically, it refers to the “number of conversations about your company versus your competitors/market”. When you measure this data, make sure to classify mentions by social channel. This way, you know which channel to focus on. Calculating SOV is quite simple: number of your brand conversations/total number of conversation of your competitor brands. You and your social media agency can do this and exchange notes for a more comprehensive report.