The Importance of Tracking your Social Media Results

By Pat Gage

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There are many reasons why you as a business owner should be tracking
your social media efforts, but let's look at the top 5 below:

1. You can't improve what you cannot measure
2. Joint venture partners will pay you more when they know your conversion rates. Also you will get more joint venture opportunities when your results are good
3. You can better understand how you and your business are being talked about as compared to your competitors.
4. You will know whether or not you are currently part of the conversations in regards to your product/service and even your industry.
5. You can learn how to build better community relationships with your target audience

When it comes to measuring your Return On Investment (ROI) either online or with social media, you first have to ask yourself this question - Why do I want to participate in social media in the first place? If your answer is to build your brand and develop a community of raving fans then you are in it for the right reasons. The currency in social media is both relationships and content.

As business owners we have been trained to see ROI in a monetary way. And saying it's simply another form of marketing or advertising. If you look at social media marketing in these terms you are missing the big picture. In fact, if you are going to measure social media marketing in terms of dollars in and dollars out -then social media marketing may not work for you. Returns or ROI don't necessarily need to directly translate into money in your bank account, if creating a positive force for and with your brand.

Although your business goals will be monetarily based, you need to start with social media in the mind set of simply joining the conversation that is taking place out there. Even as my clients can attest to the ROI for social media marketing can be very impressive, the real ROI very oftenexceeds the money that gets deposited into their bank accounts. Brand exposure and loyalty are far greater goals that are reached online than your business goals. Without exposure to your targetmarkets, where would you find your customers? Without loyal customers (raving fans), where would your brand be and then like the 1970's commercial Where's the beef" it would be "Where's the Money"?

Your brands' exposure and raving fans will ultimately lead your business to receive more referrals, which will in turn lead to more money in the bank? Another thing that exposure will do for you is the possibility of opening a new market that you could of never have thought of before, which again means more money.