Measurement & Evaluation
Measuring and evaluating a social media strategy is essential in order to be able to determine its success and then improve upon it. Measurement and evaluation is not a stage that comes at the end of a campaign, but instead it needs to be conducted continuously throughout. This allows you to ascertain if there are certain aspects of the strategy that are working better than others, and then alter the less effective ones to maximize the success of the campaign in the long run.
The following 4 things need to be done in order to be able to do this effectively:
The following 4 things need to be done in order to be able to do this effectively:
- Set clear objectives
- Determine what your KPIs are and how you can measure them
- Put processes in place to measure KPIs from the beginning
- Evaluate the KPI results against your objectives, improve on your weaknesses, and repeat.
Setting Clear Objectives
There is no one-size fits all metric for social media marketing activity, and how you evaluate your activity depends on what your objectives are from the very beginning. Being clear on this in advance will not only help determine your overall strategy but will also help you demonstrate ROI (return on income) which actually has value.
Objectives in a social media strategy are often multiple and varied, and can include any of the following:
Objectives in a social media strategy are often multiple and varied, and can include any of the following:
- raising brand awareness online
- improving your search engine performance
- driving traffic back to your website
- customer acquisition
- date capture
- improved online brand sentiment
- sales
Measuring Your KPIs
KPIs are the specific things you can measure to determine the success of your strategy.
The following table can help you ascertain which KPI’s you might want to measure on the different platforms you’re using:
The following table can help you ascertain which KPI’s you might want to measure on the different platforms you’re using:
Blogs
# blog posts # comments # inbound links generated Traffic back to brand website Sentiment of comments |
Facebook
FB page impressions FB page traffic # likes # commentions # shares and mentions |
Twitter
# people exposed to brand tweets # brand tweets # retweets # clicks on brand tweets # new followers/followers lost |
Video
# references to video # views In-video tracking Sentiment # shares |
While most of these KPIs are easy for measure, some are harder than others. Sometimes you will need to trial a number of different methods to figure out which works best.
For example, the objective of your social media strategy may be to improve brand sentiment online. But what does brand sentiment online look like? How do you measure that in Twitter? This is where you will need to think outside the box. One way you could address measuring this particular KPI might be to monitor all mentions of your brand on Twitter and record their tone (favourable or unfavourable) in an excel spreadsheet.
Your KPIs will undoubtedly evolve over time so do not stress if you do not hit the nail on the head straight away. It is still better to be recording something and evolving over time as your experience grows, than to be recording nothing and getting nowhere.
For example, the objective of your social media strategy may be to improve brand sentiment online. But what does brand sentiment online look like? How do you measure that in Twitter? This is where you will need to think outside the box. One way you could address measuring this particular KPI might be to monitor all mentions of your brand on Twitter and record their tone (favourable or unfavourable) in an excel spreadsheet.
Your KPIs will undoubtedly evolve over time so do not stress if you do not hit the nail on the head straight away. It is still better to be recording something and evolving over time as your experience grows, than to be recording nothing and getting nowhere.
Helpful Tools/Services
There are a number of tools and services you can use to help monitor the analytics of your different social media platforms. Some are platform specific, while others can be linked to a number of different platforms and produce one report with all of your KPI data. Some of these services do require subscriptions and cost money, however a number of them can be used for free.
General Analytics
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Twitter Analytics
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Facebook
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YouTube
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Measurement & Evaluation in a Nutshell
1. Set clear objectives
2. Ascertain which KPIs you will measure
3. Figure out how to measure your KPIs
4. Set processes in place to measure your KPIs right form the start
5. Measure, evaluate, and repeat.
1. Set clear objectives
2. Ascertain which KPIs you will measure
3. Figure out how to measure your KPIs
4. Set processes in place to measure your KPIs right form the start
5. Measure, evaluate, and repeat.