If there is something that worries many community managers and social media experts, it is how to be able to measure our efforts in social media. A bull that few like to fight but that is necessary to be able to justify our efforts, improve our efficiency in the chosen channels and monitor our progress.

The success of social media strategies can be conditioned by multiple and different reasons and aspects, but above all it is essential and necessary to have a road map and know which is the right path that will make us arrive without surprises to our destination.

Start by defining objectives

Define clear and coherent objectives. Do not blindly measure “I like”, “share”, “re-tweet” and others without having a strategy before. A strategy that reflects the business objectives of the company.

If our company is trying to market a specific product, our goal should be to count how effective our “posts” are on that product. How many people are you sharing, indicating that you like or interact with these posts?

Perhaps our company is trying to offer a concrete service. Let’s measure how much we are interrelating with the people in our sector and if we are beginning to be perceived as one of the significant companies in that area.

Organize

Use an excel sheet to follow, in a comprehensive and constant, the objectives we have set. For example, every week we can:

• Use Google Analytics to control the references of social media to our company’s website.
• What have been the most shared posts? If our posts included images, some have had a special success?
• Get demographic details of our followers.
• How many new followers do we have and how many have we lost?
• The hours and days in which our posts are shared most.
• The performance of certain determined links, such as conferences, seminars, webinars, etc.

Analyze

There are many tools, some especially useful.

• Hootsuite: Monitor and control the commitment.
• Bit.ly: Create links and analyze their performance.
• Google Analytics: Allow us ever if social media is redirecting people to our website.
• Facebook Insights: It serves to analyze our Facebook page from the same page.
• LinkedIn Analytics: Analyze our group on Linkedln.
• EdgeRankChecker: A free tool that analyzes our Facebook page using EdgeRank, Facebook’s algorithm
• Social Mention: It serves to analyze our brand on the web, or any other company, looking for what is being said about it. Eye to the “feeling”, which does not control it very well.

Share

Even if you know that your boss believes in social media, it is good that you share your information. These are some ideas so you can share it with him and your clients.

• Avoid jargon, speak in plain language that everyone understands.
• Keep your goals in mind and explain how social media is helping you achieve them.
• Do not abuse statistics. Choose the best information and present it clearly. Think about using graphics, they always help.
• Explain what each of the statistics means. Use metaphors and examples if necessary.
• Keep them up to date with regular meetings.

Practice what has been learned

What you have learned, put it into practice in your social media strategy. Your strategy must adapt continuously. New platforms appear and the most common ones, like Facebook or Twitter, are continuously contributing news day in and day out. Use the data you have obtained in the measurements to inform about your strategy.

Have you noticed that in Facebook people interact more when there are photos than when there is only text? Do you know when is the best time of day to relate to your audience? Check your data continuously and use it to help you in your daily life on social media.