Are your social media marketing investments driving the results you need? Executives will demand that you prove your budget investments are working, but do you know what you should track to get that evidence?
While follower numbers and number of times content is shared can help you build your case, they don’t tell enough of the story. You need to translate those numbers into something meaningful to your executive team if you want to hold onto your marketing budget dollars.
You need to quantify the return on investment for your social media marketing tactics just as you do for traditional marketing initiatives. While social media marketing metrics are far from perfect today, you can collect the necessary data to support your current and future social media marketing spending.
Below are five key performance indicators (KPIs), you should start tracking right now. Executives understand and value this type of performance information, and it could make the difference between getting your next marketing budget approved or denied. These KPIs are in addition to the ones discussed above—growth in followers and shares—and growth in link click-throughs.
1. High Quality Lead Generation
Are your social media marketing initiatives bringing in quality leads? Track the number of leads from social media, the number of those leads that actually became buying customers, and the revenue brought in by those customers. Set KPIs to increase the number of quality leads by a specific percentage as well as to increase the purchase value per customer.
2. Sales Volume and Revenue Growth
The most important metric to executives is revenue. Therefore, all of your social media marketing initiatives that require part of your marketing budget dollars, should be measurable. Track the number of sales generated from social media as well as the revenues derived from those sales. Set a KPI to increase both numbers by a specific percentage.
3. Brand Sentiment
Brand sentiment is calculated by tracking the number of positive brand mentions across the social web compared to negative brand mentions. Set a KPI goal to increase positive brand sentiment by a specific percentage.
4. Customer Loyalty and Word-of-Mouth Marketing
Of course, customer loyalty can be measured by tracking the path a customer took before making a purchase. If that path started with social media, then you can measure the customer’s loyalty over time. However, another critical aspect of customer loyalty when it comes to social media is the positive word-of-mouth marketing that loyal brand advocates spread online. Identify your best customers who are vocal across social media and set a KPI to increase their advocacy (through a growing number of positive online conversations and sharing about the brand) by a specific percentage.
5. Customer Engagement
Customer engagement relates to how customers interact directly with your brand using social media. Track frequency, duration, and quality of engagements and set a KPI to increase all three metrics across the board.
What social media marketing KPIs do you find most useful in building your case for a social media marketing budget to executives? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
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Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
