Know your social media metrics
No matter what social media platforms you’re using to promote your business, if you’re not measuring your results, you’re wasting your time!
You need to track things like which posts perform better than others and what types of content your users like the most.
According to Twitter, 336 million people use the platform each month. But at first, I had a hard time seeing the value of tweeting. It was hard for me to justify the amount of time and effort I was spending on it, before I understood how to properly market there and calculate the ROI (return on investment) of Twitter.
Yes, I saw many celebrities and big brands join the platform, and it became an active community for tweeting about politics: Barack Obama even announced that he had won the 2012 presidential election on the platform.
But how could it work for me and my clients?
I see things differently now, and I put a lot of effort into marketing on this platform (as you’ll see by going to our account. I tweet a lot)! But that’s because I know how to calculate Twitter ROI, so I know what works and what doesn’t.
Too many entrepreneurs don’t effectively measure their efforts on social media. They also don’t realize how valuable their time is. They will choose something DIY to save money instead of hiring an expert to do it for them.
They don’t consider the time they spend learning how to do the task, the time they lose by not focusing on their business, and the fact that the expert probably could have given them better results.
From my perspective, I see a lot of value in social networking sites when it comes to visibility, brand enhancement, relationship building, and being recognized as an expert in your industry.
But the key is to allocate your time wisely.
Give yourself enough time to accomplish your goals, and then move on to other important business development activities. There’s nothing wrong with spending some of your time on social media, but spending hours a day on it probably isn’t the best thing for your business or your ROI.
Here’s how to focus your time wisely on Twitter metrics:
Set your goals.
Is it for people to download a white paper on your website?
To fill out a form for a free consultation?
Only then will you be able to calculate ROI effectively. You need to be able to see what people are doing, like clicking a link you posted to get to your website.
Part of your analytics setup (Google Analytics or a paid platform) will be creating a tracking token per goal. Most marketers have more than one goal: on the home page it might be to sign up for a newsletter, while on an internal page it might be to download an e-book.
You want to be able to see what actions had what results, instead of ending up with a giant set of statistics that you can’t understand.
There are online tools that allow you to generate these tracking tokens, or you can hire a professional marketing company to make it much easier for you to analyze the metrics.
Meet Twitter Analytics.
Here you’ll find stats on everything from audience demographics to engagement rate. Some of the best ideas here include:
? Tweet engagements and engagement rate. Engagements are the number of interactions a Tweet receives, while engagement rate is engagements divided by impressions.
? Event data and current affairs. This shows you the holidays and trending conversations so you can join in when and where it’s relevant.
? Performance of video content. According to Hootsuite, video Tweets attract 10x more engagement. When you’ve started tweeting your video content, you can see how people are engaging with your videos, as if they’re watching it all the way through. Read ‘Why Incorporating Videos into Your Twitter Account is Good for Social Marketing’.
Don’t forget the hashtags.
Hashtags can be a really effective marketing tool, but many marketers don’t know how to track their ROI.
Not sure what hashtags are? Check out the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Social Media Hashtags’.
You can track the number of interactions with your hashtag (how many people like, share, comment, or retweet the content) to see how a particular tag is performing.
It’s just one of the ways to see if the time and/or money you’re spending on social media is paying off.
See examples from BizGalz, a global community of women and men who support them as they “challenge the world, think big and create change.” During one of their recent Twitter chats, they asked people to name their favorite conference using the hashtag #BizGalz so they can easily see who is in the chat.
Keep tracking.
Depending on the size of your business, it may take some time to discover actionable statistics. Alright! Keep tracking and adjusting as you go.
It’s important not to lose focus on things like how many followers you’re gaining or losing over time, how many shares your posts are getting, how certain hashtags work, etc.
While it can be a bit more difficult to calculate Twitter ROI than simply seeing if someone filled out a form on your site, it’s worth spending some time focusing your marketing efforts there and familiarizing yourself with your analytics. Chances are your competitors are!
Do you find it difficult to find enough time in the day to get your business tasks done, regardless of social media? Or maybe you’re not sure where to start.
