Measuring Your Social Media Success

A common concern for businesses investing in Internet Marketing programs and social media strategies is their return on investment. That’s why it is so important to consider and include analytics in every program and plan a company creates or receives from an Internet Marketing service provider.

As part of ongoing social media trends seen in today’s global business environment, metrics and analytics are a dominant part of discussion among those seeking the most return on their investment and wanting to have a better understanding of how to use the data that is generated from strategies like Google AdWords, SEO, and PPC. As more businesses seek to leverage the power within the data and are eager to learn how to leverage it to better target their intended audience, social analytic technology is becoming a valuable space to be further developed and included in Internet Marketing programs.

A Shift to a Mainstream Strategy

And, as social networking and social media becomes more mainstream with a wider business audience and more industries take advantage of what these tools have to offer, this type of digital interaction will require even more analytics in order to help make marketing decisions and shape messaging and interactions with potential customers and existing clients.

This includes moving beyond just simply using Twitter or Facebook; it will require that companies figure out how to embed a social component in every part of their organization and then measure the results of how it is being used in each location, department, and function.

The Important Role of Analytics

A recent article in InformationWeek noted some of the reasons why analytics – from keyword filtering and natural language processing to text mining – are so important. First and foremost, it is a way to monitor engagement with blogs and other social media tools. It can also be used for market research intelligence to gauge new opportunities, identify and respond to threats or public complaints, and test new product or service ideas.

However, there are many areas that need to be measured if a company is to carve out a competitive advantage through the use of social media. The article noted the following types of measurements as created by Gary Angel of Semphonic:

·         Customer Support = Operational Metrics

·         Public Relations = Influence Categorization and Tracking

·         Campaigns = Listening and Web Analytics

·         Communities = Engagement and Attrition

·         Social CRM = Customer Data Integration

·         Products and Customer Research = Advanced Natural Language Processing

Each of these must be measured and assessed to understand the audience and determine the best way to enhance social media messaging for better engagement and interaction in order to truly leverage what is possible from Internet Marketing.

Not sure how to do this? Flyline Search Marketing provides a wide range of analytics and Internet Marketing strategies. Ask us how we can help you!