There are so many ways to track content results: monitoring clicks or page views, ad success, or a myriad of other things. But none of those tell you how great your content is actually doing.
You could have the best metrics in the world, but if you’re not clear on your ideal client and messaging, you’re not being effective with your strategy or finding the success you’re looking for.
The first step to creating visibility is by effectively using your social media. If it’s not reaching the right target audience, you’re not going to find social media success.
So how do you really measure ROI from social media?
What Is Social Media ROI?
Social media ROI is the return on investment from your social posts.
While it’s usually measured using monetary values, it can also be measured through only non-monetary goals. For example, if you’re trying to increase the amount of brand interaction, your ROI could be measured in the amount of interaction with your content and followers.
The metrics or strategy that is right for your own business will largely depend on what your business goals may be.
When you measure ROI through social media, you’ll find that you can accurately determine if you’re reaching your target audience with your messaging and strategies. If you’re not, you’ll find that your company is not very popular on social media networks.
How Do I Measure Social Media Performance?
While the simplest metric of calculating your performance on social media is by calculating your revenue, there are many other vital aspects you need to check out to truly see how you’re doing with your social media.
This includes:
- Analyze Each Platform: While most people are concerned about their follower counts on social media, we teach our clients to be more concerned about engagement rates. You could have a million followers, but if they aren’t engaging, then they aren’t buying.
It’s also important to understand which platforms your ideal clients are on. If your audience is on LinkedIn and you aren’t, then you could be missing out on a lot of new connections.
Understanding how each platform is working for your company can provide the insights you need.
- Track Data: Once you know the numbers, you need to track them so you know what’s working and what isn’t.
We also teach our clients how to know which posts are performing well, so they can create more like it. It’s important to know what your audience is responding to and what they are passing on.
- Determine Actionability: While you might get a ton of likes on one of your social media posts, does this translate to more business? Not necessarily.
One important metric is to determine if your content is actionable. For example, does a post with an attractive headline and quality photo offer any type of call to action, and does your audience follow through?
Why Isn’t My Social Media Showing Results?
If you’ve tried to measure your social media ROI and realize that you’re not where you’d like to be, don’t fret. Before businesses are crystal clear with their target audience and goals, this tends to happen.
Here are some reasons you might not find the results you’re looking for on your social media platforms.
1. You’re Not Using The Right Messaging For Your Target Audience
One of the biggest mistakes companies make is using messaging that is related to themselves instead of their target audience.
For example, if you’re a fitness company that sells protein powder and your target audience is women who are looking for weight loss tips – you wouldn’t want your brand to sound very masculine or talk about how you can bulk up using this protein powder. The messaging just doesn’t align.
2. You’re Not Using The Right Platforms
In addition to the messaging, you also need to be on the right social media platform. Unfortunately, businesses often make the mistake of using many different social media platforms instead of focusing on the most critical networks.
For example, if your target audience is high school students and they spend most of their time scrolling through Instagram or TikTok – you shouldn’t waste your time using platforms like Facebook or LinkedIn.
3. You Don’t Have A Content Strategy
Many companies will jump into posting on social media without having some type of goal or strategy. They believe it will help their company grow but end up posting random content with generic tones that don’t bring in any engagement. If this sounds like your company, you’ll want to instead evaluate your goals with social media.
What is the value of your own content? What are you trying to accomplish with it? If you don’t know what purpose each post serves – this will be hard for anyone else to determine as well. You need to figure out the goal behind each social media post so that people who engage with your posts or follow your account understand why they should continue following along.
4. You’re Trying To Sell, Not Create Community
If you’re only using your social media page to sell your content to your customers, you’re not providing value to your customers. Why would your audience want to engage or follow your brand in the first place if every post is telling them to buy something?
Instead, you’ll want to focus on building a community around your brand and providing them with content that they can’t get anywhere else.
Your Social Media Success Helps Shape Your Growth
If you’re using the correct targeting, messaging, and strategy with your audience, you’re going to find growth and engagement through your social media.
While it’s important to track metrics through your website and paid advertising, you can learn a lot by checking how you’re doing with social media. While page views might sound nice, having consistent interaction and engagement with your brand is even better.
Are you not finding the results you need? Check out the Content Simplified Academy where you’ll discover exactly what it takes to make an awesome content plan that creates the results you want.
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