You’ve created social media accounts for your business, and you’re posting to those channels, but is it actually working?

Before we even look at whether your social media marketing efforts are working, we have to ask: did you start with a strategy and clear goals? If you set clear goals, you’ll be able see if your marketing is effective based on whether or not you achieved those goals. If you’re aimless with social media marketing, you won’t achieve much.

Here’s how to tell if your social media marketing is working

Have your vanity metrics increased?

Before we deep dive down the data rabbit-hole, let’s look at vanity metrics. These are numbers that look impressive and increase your legitimacy, but they don’t offer much insight. Some examples of vanity metrics are followers, likes, and page likes. If you’ve noticed that these numbers have started increasing since you began your social media journey, that’s a good sign! It means that what you’re posting is drawing interest, if nothing else.

Analyse your analytics

Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn all have analytics available to you. The trick is learning how to read the data – and this is where your goals come in handy. If the aim of a post was to drive traffic to a blog on your website, you’re not going to look at likes – you’re going to look at link clicks. Here are just a few social media marketing goals with their corresponding metrics.

Here’s a glossary of the metrics to help you understand the data:

• Total Likes: The “Like” feature is simple in nature. Users click “Like” to communicate that they like your post or page.
• Post Impressions: The number of times that your post was on-screen.
• Post Reach: The number of people who saw your post at least once. Reach is different to impressions, which may include multiple views of your adverts by the same people.
• Post Engagement: Engagement is when people perform actions on your Page. They may like a post, click on a link, comment on an image, or bookmark the post.
• Engagement Rate: Engagement rate is the percentage of people who saw a post that reacted to, shared, clicked or commented on it.

Watch your web traffic

Do you use Google Analytics? You can use this service to see where your website traffic is coming from, how long they stay on your website, and when they leave. By using Google Analytics, you can see if users are coming to your website from your social media platforms. If they are, then you know your social media marketing efforts are working! Yay!

Have your sales increased?

Marketing is there to support sales, so of course you’ll want to know if there has been an increase in sales. If you have an e-commerce website and you’re using Google Analytics, you’ll be able to track a user from your social media platform to your website, to Add to Cart, and to Purchase. If you have a physical store or offer a service, chat to your sales team. Have they noticed an increase in leads or sales? If not, is it because your campaigns are not performing well, or is it because you need to change your strategy?

If you need a little help determining if your social media profiles are optimally set up, check out our free social media audits here. We hope you found this blog helpful! Please let us know your thoughts by leaving a comment 😊