It’s no surprise that nearly every company utilizes social media marketing in their overall strategy. And “87% of marketers want to know how to measure their return on investment for social media activities” (source: Social Media Examiner)

As many organizations are looking to connect the dots when it comes to measuring social media success, here are 3 tips to get you started:

1. It’s more than Fans and Followers: Although the amount of followers, fans and unique visitors can be important, it cannot be the only metrics utilized when measuring success. Unlike traditional media, measuring ROI on social media is much more grey than black and white. There are milestones such as 100 follows or 1,000 likes, but even more important is engaging with your customers. This ultimately builds relationships, brand awareness and can also generate significant word of mouth advertising.

2. Create A Metrics Dashboard: It’s important to have a centralized hub to capture and share the various social media successes within your organization. Whether it’s an email log-in, shared excel sheet or third party software, making sure that it can be accessed enables other team members to track your successes.

3. Utilize measuring tools: Whether it’s crunching the numbers with your calculator or using a third party tool to help capture various data, a key component to success is using various methods to measure social effectiveness. There are many free tools out there to try. A few to start with: socialmention, topsy and hootsuite. Need more ideas? The Huffington Post created a good list of social media tools for marketers here.

Keep these tips in mind as you continue to grow your social media presence. If you need help or have any questions on how to build your companies social media brand, feel free to reach out to us.