Analyzing your Social Media Strategy

20 Ways To Grow Your Business Through Social Media – Day 16

Now that you have some idea of what social media can do for your business, how will you know if your efforts are actually accomplishing something? There has to be a way to analyze the results of the pages you’ve created and the ideas that you have put together.

Remember when we first began discussing social media strategy? There has to be a purpose behind your plan. What do you hope to achieve with each aspect of your strategy? For instance, are you seeking a 50 percent increase in page views on Facebook? Are you looking to connect with new business partners on LinkedIn? Are your retweet numbers up on Twitter?

Without a game plan, you might as well be searching for a target in the dark. As long as you choose a quantifiable goal, there are ways to track them. With social media, you are in it for the long haul. Short-term campaigns can be run that focus on making a turnaround in a short period of time. Mostly, however, the idea is to increase traffic, build brand awareness, build relationships and even build your email list. This takes time. But, even with that, you can determine how steadily you will see results.

Social Media Analysis Tools

Some tools require a cost to use them, but many are free. If you are just getting started, there is no reason to invest in anything with a price. Make use of what is offered free of charge and then branch out to more sophisticated tools if you need them.

Speaking of tools, which ones will you need to use? That all depends on what metrics you are trying to measure. Here’s an example or two. If you want to increase engagement, then things like the number of retweets, shares, and comments will be helpful. Now, if you want to increase traffic to your fan pages, then things like page views, likes, +1s, tweets, and pins will help. How about driving traffic to your website? Here, you might consider tracking URL shares, conversions, clicks and such. Each tool you choose will measure a different type of behavior.

Here are a few tools to consider. They are in no particular order:

ViralWoot – tracking pins on Pinterest
Buffer – lets you measure engagement stats on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+
Google Analytics – website traffic stats
SumAll – daily or weekly look at changes in your social media accounts

Best of all, each social media site offers users their own analytics tools to get you started.

Using social media for business is no good if you can’t tell what’s happening.

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