So you’ve set up an awesome social media campaign. You’re gaining a strong following for your business on Twitter, Facebook, and Company blog, how do you begin to measure your success? How do you know if your social media campaign is working?

First and foremost, you have to take a few steps back and analyze the reasons your company decided to approach the social media platform. Did you start a Facebook Page to create brand awareness? Was it to sell your products or services? Or is your social media strategy, a part of your overall Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy?

The Return on Investment (ROI) in Social Media can be direct or indirect, instant and over time.

It is nearly impossible to convert every single person that comes across your Facebook Page, Twitter, or blog into a customer. However, you have to realize that even if they don’t convert instantaneously, you made 1 more person aware of your business. In the future, when they are in need of your product or service, they are already familiar with your company and therefore are more likely to become your customer.

1. The number of people you reach is vital to the return on investment of Social Media.

What’s the point of doing all the right things on Facebook and Twitter to promote your business if there are no Fans or Followers to promote to?

The more number of fans you have,  the more opportunities you have for people to see your content, share your product or services, and increase your ROI.

In order to track fan data, Facebook pages already come equipped with  Engagement Metrics that allow you to track fan base and fan interactions over time. Did you offer a special deal and noticed that the number of fans as well as sales increased during that time? Facebook Engagement Metrics allow you to see trends in your fan base and page views, as well as fan feedback. You can use this information to get to know your target audience and find out what promotions work best for your brand.

There are multiple free 3rd Party metrics that you can use to look at your  Twitter account data, including http://twitaholic.com/.

Blog data can be analyzed by a website analytics tool or FeedBurner—->using both tools will help you see the number of people overall that visit your blog, average time spent on the blog (standard website analytics), and the number of people that you convert into subscribers (FeedBurner).

If you notice your fan base isn’t growing, you can focus your time on building a strong fan base instead of continuing with your current social media strategy.

Easier said than done right? We understand that for some businesses, getting 100, 50, even 25 Fans is not an easy feat to achieve.  Check out my last post “A Tweet a Day Keeps Your Business at Bay” for some tips on building your fan/follower base.

2. You can also measure social media success by analyzing the amount of traffic generated through social media platforms.

If you have a website, you may already be familiar with a number of analytics tools on the market that help you monitor the number of website visitors you receive daily. You can look at the number of visitors generated through social media sources. As you invest more time into your social media campaign, do you notice an increase in the number of website traffic? Results may not happen right away. Track and monitor changes over time.

Stay Tuned for ROI on Social Media Part 2 to read up on the most important metrics to measure success.