How to Measure Your Social Media Impact
Is there any easy way to measure your social media influence? Hardly unlikely. Let’s take a kiik at some of the criteria:
Size of network
Might as well start with this. Many people think this is the final say all for social media success. Those people are missing what social media is all about. All that said however, the size of your network is one metric to gauge your level of popularity, and reach across each social network.
Number are your metric here, but quality of your network is equally if not more important. The more targeted you can make your network, the higher quality your traffic will be. If you’re on Twitter, having 2,000 bot accounts are worthless, so focus on building a large, quality network.
Level of engagement
Another important metric is the level on engagement with your network. This is a simple metric to measure since you are the one interacting everyday. Start paying attention to how your network engages with you. Are you having conversations? What are they about? Conversations are good because you are building trust and a more solid relationship. If you have a sales background you know already that building relationships are one of the best ways to increase sales.
Shares
A spin off metric from engagement is shares. Does your network share your content? Engaging with your network and providing value is a great way to compel them to share your content with their network. Keep tabs on shares. This is what makes social media so powerful. Shares are what can make content go viral.
Traffic
Size of network and traffic are the easiest social media metrics to measure. It’s quick and easy to watch your network grow as well as your web traffic. Make sure you set-up your analytics so that you can easily segment out traffic from social media. It is also advantageous to not only segment out traffic from social media, but find a way to filter by each social network. This way you can determine which social network sends the most traffic as well as the quality of the traffic. Look for things such as bounce rate, page depth and time on site.
Inbound links
Social media is great for building links. Many of the links you get are nofollow, but they are still inbound links to your website or blog that can funnel in visitors. There are a few social networks that are still dofollow. Either way, you can measure the amount of inbound links you build through social media.
Brand exposure
Time aside, social media is a great and cheap way to build brand awareness. Each network you build a community around is a chance to expose your brand to a new audience. I don’t remember the exact numbers, but statistics show that people are more apt to buy from a brand they have connected with through social media.
Zack Hanebrink is an online marketing professional at RhinoSEO. RhinoSEO provides internet marketing tools and SEO services.
Post img by Darrren Hester
Great post on social media measurement! I currently do social media work for Good Clean Love, an Oregon company that manufactures all-natural love products and I know I sometimes have trouble figuring out how to write posts and Facebook/Twitter statuses that will attract a large number of users. I have found that it is largely a DIY process, but that we can all learn from each other.
Thanks again for the tips!
Engagement is a far better metric than sheer numbers.For example, my personal Twitter account has around 500 followers – yet only around 100 of those people RT my blog posts, leave comments or just converse with me on a day to day basis.