Businesses know they “need to be on social media” but what many don’t understand is what impact social media marketing has on the bottom line of their business.

With the concept of ROI being so deeply rooted in the theory of customer acquisition or direct revenue generation, explaining that the measurement of social media marketing isn’t a one-to-one direct ratio is often harder to get across to most business leaders.

The true benefit of social media marketing is in brand equity and customer service.  Yep, you read that correctly!  When done correctly, social media marketing will strengthen your brand’s reputation, grow your reach, and serve as an avenue of customer support.

Measuring Social Media Marketing

Now we aren’t saying you can’t measure performance though.  If you want to get a good feel for how your social media marketing is performing, pay attention to these metrics:

• Audience – Take stock of your audience (follows, likes, shares) and measure it weekly or monthly.  If your audience is growing, so is your following — well done you!
• Purchase History – You can gauge the impact of social media marketing on current and new customers by taking a baseline of where your customers are before a major social campaign.  After your campaign launches, see if your current customer’s buying history changed and measure the influx of new customers.  You’ll be able to glean a positive or negative impact of your social campaigns by monitoring this information.
• Google Analytics – Another great way to measure the impact of social media marketing is to use Google Analytics.  You’ll be able to see if your traffic is coming from social platforms, as well as which campaigns are sending the most users to your website.  Best of all, this is free and offers real-time reporting once it’s set up and in place.  Slick, right?
• Customer Service – While perhaps harder to quantify, social media marketing offers an additional arm for your customer service support.  Customers often leave reviews or voice issues via social media.  Monitor and respond to customers on your social platforms — it builds confidence and trust in your business and provides an avenue via which to reach and resolve customer questions and concerns.  And yes, even negative comments can work in your favor if other customers see that you responded quickly and resolved the issue (that shows you care).