More than 41% of companies don’t measure their social media ROI. What is the value of a “like”, of a “tweet”, of a “follower”? Most businesses can’t answer these questions, and they have no idea if their social media campaigns are paying off.

With over 31% of all web traffic now coming from social media, brands have to define social’s role in their business objectives. In 2016, social only accounted for 22% of traffic generated. And as we enter a new decade, business owners can expect that percentage to continue to grow.

What Is Social Media ROI?

Social media ROI is a clear measure of what your business is getting back from the money and resources that you’re putting into your social media marketing efforts. It’s important because tracking results provides insights as to what’s working and what isn’t. This, of course, helps you to see what strategies and social media platforms are driving the most return on your investment.

How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business

In 2018, more than half of social media marketers said that measuring ROI was their number one challenge. Figuring out return on investment for a Facebook post, a tweet, an Instagram can seem like a guessing game for some. Not everything you do on a social media platform translates into dollars and cents. Yet at the same time, you need to account for the time and resources that go into your company’s social efforts.

Define How You Will Measure ROI?

Social media ROI won’t be measured in the same way for every company. Some may measure it in sales and conversions – others will measure it in brand awareness, community building, and customer service results. Ignoring social all together could be detrimental to your company, as not paying attention to customer concerns could result in not only bad PR but also the loss of a client or customer to your competitor.

So what do you do?

Set Actionable Goals

Once you determine how you will measure your results (sales, brand awareness, etc.), you can set social media goals. Some goals might include:

• Increasing Followers
• More Engagement (Retweets, Shares, Likes, and Comments)
• Increasing Website Traffic
• Increased Sales
• Etc…

For companies that are focused on increasing sales, you want to be specific and strategic with the goals you’re creating. For example, if you want to increase traffic to your website to highlight a specific service or product, you could run a paid Facebook Ads campaign. This campaign would be focused on your target demographic and drive traffic to a specific link on your website. You can also install a Facebook pixel on your site, which will allow you to collect data from these consumers. Did they purchase a product or service? What did it cost you to make that sale? What is the average conversion rate for your campaign? Are you able to justify the cost of your ad spend?

Measure Your Goals

Measuring social media ROI is something your business should regularly be doing. The easy way to do this is by looking at Google Analytics. Google’s Analytic platform can not only highlight which social media platforms are sending the most traffic to your site, but it can also highlight the finical social ROI for a specific campaign.

Another way to measure your company’s social ROI is to work with a marketing agency that tracks this information for you and compiles it into a monthly report. This is what we do for our clients. We handle the creation of your social media strategy, the management of your profiles and ad spends, and we create monthly reports that showcase the results of your goals and our efforts. Handing your social media management over to us allows you to focus on what you’re best at, and lets us do what we’re best at – marketing your business to new and existing customers and clients.

Need help with your business’ social media management and measuring your ROI of social? Fill out the form below to reach out to Excite for a free consultation and audit of your social media presence. We’d love to work with you!