If you have implemented social media into your marketing strategy, you want to ensure that your money and your efforts are being well spent. Some businesses don’t believe that social media efforts can be measured, but they’re not looking in the right places.
Measuring social media is different than measuring other marketing tactics. You don’t want to simply know if customers are finding you on social media and then making a purchase. While social media does help get your company in front of a large audience, the purpose is not to simply make sales—you want to use it to engage your audience. Building this level of trust will help your current and potential customers choose you when it comes time to make a purchasing decision.
Measuring social media involves having a good grasp on who is reading your posts and your tweets, who is clicking through on the links you provide, and who is “liking” or retweeting the things you say. The more viral your content becomes on social media, the more likely people are to see it and actually pay attention to it. This conversation and these click-throughs are what drives customers to your company.
There are plenty of tools to help measure social media. The following are just a few of those available.
1. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is one of the most basic social media measuring tools. You can set up your Google Alerts for specific names, such as your company name or your product names. Anytime one of these names is mentioned anywhere on the Internet, you will receive an email notification. This helps you track how many times your name is being mentioned, as well as who is mentioning you and why.
2. Google Analytics
If you want to have more in-depth knowledge about your social media efforts, Google Analytics will help. With this tool, you will see the web traffic regarding your website. This tool will show you how visitors are finding your website. If you see that most of your web traffic is being generated from your social media accounts, then your social media efforts are working.
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite allows you to see your social media efforts in real time. You can add multiple social media accounts to this tool, so all of your Facebook, Twitter and other social media accounts can be managed from one website. Hootsuite allows you to customize your own analytics reports. You can see who is retweeting your tweets, see how many followers you’ve gained and so on.
4. Radian6
This company specializes in all things social media, but they also provide a very in-depth analytics report. Not only will their customized reports show you what is being said about your company and your brand, but their results will show you which posts and tweets garnered the most interest as well as where traffic is being generated from.
If you want to use a tool to measure your social media, you need to play around with a few and see which ones you like and which are the most beneficial to your company. Measuring social media is a great way to learn if your company is employing the right tactics, engaging with the right people, and even learning when your tweets or posts are most likely to be read. Knowing this information will help you determine if changes need to be made in order to get the most of your social media marketing.