Think Before You Engage: 100 Questions to Ask Before Starting a Social Media Marketing Campaign

93. What Metrics Should I Use to Gauge My Return on Investment?

Different sites offer different metrics. The most common metrics are:

• Followers
• Fans
• Friends
• Backlinks
• Sales
• Referrals
• Social press coverage
• Geo-location check-ins
• Extended network
• Speed of growth
• Influence of followers/friends
• Engagement
• Page ranking
• SEO results

Many different tools are mentioned in Chapter 11, but you have to determine the reason why you want to know certain metrics before you decide to just go ahead and track them. Some measurements may mean a lot to your business, whereas others won't matter at all. Just like being selective about the services on which you create a brand presence, you should also narrow down the benchmarks and goals for your overall strategy.

The type of business you have will greatly determine the basic foundation of metrics you should track. Retail stores or businesses that depend on foot traffic will heavily rely on information about geo-location check-ins, whereas companies that don't take walk-in business (such as corporate headquarters) won't find much value in the information at all (other than which employees checks in the most).

A local brick-and-mortar also won't have as much need to have a high follower count, while an online magazine blog such as Mashable or HollywoodHotMoms.com might rely on follower and friend counts to help drive readership.

Related Questions