The Social Media Marketer

The Art And Science Of Tracking Social Media Metrics

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Would you have enough faith in your car to believe it’s going to keep on running, even if you never looked at is gas gauge and never stopped at a gas station to refuel it?

Of course not -- that would be naive and misguided, wouldn’t it?
Then why would you take it on faith that your social media projects are working as they should be?

Too many of us are guilty of thinking this way. After all, we’ve got that fan page on Facebook; we’re tweeting like mad fools and people are even commenting -- sometimes -- on your blog.

People “Digg” your site when they “StumbleUpon” it, and all in all, it seems like if you keep going on in this way, your social media projects will magically take care of themselves.  After all, you’ve done all this work, so things should be fine, right? And it would take so much work to keep track of all that, you just figure that everything is fine.

But just like you can’t leave a garden without tending it, you can’t leave your social media efforts without tending them, either.

So what should you be doing to keep track of everything?

You can employ the science of social media metrics. And before you recoil in horror at the thought of being scientific with your website and the ways you market it, some tried-and-true methods will prove to be accessible. And if you still can’t get the hang of it, seek a little help from a professional social media manager, who will be all to happy to line your efforts up and keep track of how they are working.

If you’re not doing it already, you should use Google Analytics or another analytic program on every page of your website. Additionally, use it on your social media programs, so you can track them and how much traffic they are sending your way.

Here’s what your analytics will show you:

1. Traffic reports. You can keep track of not only your site itself, but how many page views are coming from certain social media methods. This way, you can determine what is working and what isn’t.

2. Do you have unique visitors? It’s not enough to have a lot of repeat traffic -- that could just be your mom, hitting the refresh button and stopping by every day. By using analytics to keep track of your social media metrics, you can see the links between total visits and unique ones, so you can tell what kind of new traffic has been generated by certain parts of your social media efforts.

3. Keeping track of other sites. By watching this, you’ll see which of the social media sites are sending you the most traffic, as well as watching who is tweeting about you, and who is mentioning you on their blog. You can use this information to target your social media work.

Now, why is it important to know how much traffic you’re getting and where it’s coming from?  It’s important because you’ll learn how to focus your efforts. After all, why would you keep tweeting like that mad fool mentioned above, if your website is getting very little traffic from Twitter?

Keep doing it, of course, just to reach those people, but if your numbers aren’t showing good results from Twitter, switch your efforts to where they are paying the biggest dividends.

And don’t forget, while working on your social media metrics,  to have your analytics track where your site’s visitors go when they leave you. Are they putting you on StumbleUpon for other people? Clicking your “Like” button for Facebook? Setting up their own RSS feeds to receive your updates? These are important social media metrics to keep track of -- and to use in future marketing campaigns.

Are you interested in keeping better track of your efforts? Google Analytics is easy to use, and it’s free. There are other programs as well, but starting with the leader in the industry is a great way to go.