How to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media Marketing

Businesses are drawn to social media, and you cannot really blame them for that. With all the hype that has surrounded Twitter and Facebook, it’s not difficult to understand why small businesses are so eager to jump into that bandwagon. Although you’re not really spending much money on tweeting about your business or posting statuses on Facebook, but you are using time and effort. With something as tricky as social media marketing, how are entrepreneurs able to measure their social media effectiveness?

Before delving on that question deeper, it must be emphasized that although there is so much talk surrounding the use of social media, it’s not an “end all be all” solution. Entrepreneurs should stick to realistic goals when experimenting with social media. An achievable goal would be to use social media to enhance your website’s SEO rank with the help of high quality back links that social media can provide. There are two methods to assess whether your social media marketing campaign is working or not.

Google Analytics

As expected, Google’s arsenal of tools includes a specific one which can help confused Twitter and Facebook users. Although Google Analytics is not that helpful in making individuals understand the viral nature of social networks, but with the help of Google’s conversion tracker it can help individuals ascertain where traffic is coming from. This information can help business owners know exactly which strategies work and which do not.

New Tools

Presently, it’s only Google Analytics which social media marketers can turn to for help. However, there is a slew of tools which are currently being developed. The only catch with these new tools is that most of them are limited to just one channel or kind social media experience.

ShareThis

ShareThis platform can help entrepreneurs measure the viral effects of their social media campaigns. Currently reaching more than 400 million individuals in just one month, users need only to utilize the social media share buttons which are provided when one subscribes to ShareThis’ service. Best of all, ShareThis is easy to integrate into your site.

Audience Index

Recently released, Audience Index is particularly helpful to all website publishers. By helping publishers understand as well as compare their social audiences with that of more than 850,000 other websites, publishers can find out what type of influencers their websites attract. Consequently, publishers can better understand how to engage and connect with their influencers, listeners and customers.

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Your author Chris likes to write about local search engine marketing and provides local seo marketing to small businesses.

Technorati Tags: analytics, business, media effectiveness, new tools, share button, social media marketing