Lilach Bullock presented a Simplilearn webinar called “How To Measure Your Social Media Success,” published on YouTube on 21 April 2017. It is a 33 minute presentation on the question most businesses skip: how do you know whether the time and money you put into social media is working? Her answer is to set SMART goals first, separate vanity metrics from actionable ones, and then measure each goal with the right KPI, from Google Analytics for traffic and conversions to social listening for brand awareness and engagement, and finally to use the results to double down on what works. The video is embedded below, followed by the key takeaways, a summary and a cleaned transcript. Some of the tools she names, including the Google URL shortener, Klout and Google+, have closed since 2017; the method has not changed, and her updated guide is linked below.
Watch on YouTube: How To Measure Your Social Media Success | Simplilearn Webinar By Lilach Bullock. The webinar was hosted and recorded by Simplilearn.
Key takeaways
- Social media is an investment of time, tools and people, and measuring is the only way to know whether it pays and what to change. Ads and email are easy to measure; social is harder because goals like engagement do not translate directly into money.
- Set goals first, using SMART: specific (“increase Facebook traffic by 20 percent,” not “more traffic”), measurable, attainable (social takes time, doubling conversions in a month is wishful), relevant to the business, and time-bound with a realistic deadline.
- Vanity metrics (followers, likes) feel good and change nothing. Actionable metrics (traffic, clicks, leads, conversions) tell you which network and which content to invest in.
- Traffic: use a URL shortener on every link plus Google Analytics (Acquisition, All Traffic, Channels, Social), and judge quality by bounce rate, session duration, goal completions and user flow. Brand awareness: mentions from social listening, direct and new-versus-returning traffic, follower growth measured against engagement, and new regions reached. Conversions and leads: Google Analytics goals with a monetary value, network lead cards, and a CRM where every social lead is tagged.
- Engagement: mentions found by monitoring the brand name, not just the handle, plus comments, likes, shares and retweets. Advocates: tools that flag your top sharers, then reward them. Customer service: response rate and time per team member, as Sainsbury’s fishy-pun exchange showed the upside of doing it well. Influence: engagement trends over time rather than follower counts.
- Use the results: which platforms work and which to drop, what content earns shares and comments and why, and what caused any spike, then replicate it. Tools she covered: Agorapulse, Quintly, Hashtagify, Brandwatch, Brand24, a further reporting platform whose name is unclear in the recording, and Meltwater.
Why measure, and how to set the goal
Lilach opened by framing social media marketing as an investment of daily time, tools, staff and consultants, and said the only way to know it is well spent is to measure. There are two reasons: to see whether the resources are paying off, and to see what works and what does not so the strategy improves. Ads and email are easy to track; social is harder because goals such as engagement do not carry an income figure. So the first step is goals: traffic, brand awareness, conversions and sales, qualified leads, loyalty and advocates, public image and customer service, or influence. She recommends SMART goals and walked through each letter, warning that social media takes time to grow and that unrealistic goals or deadlines set you up to fail. Then the distinction that runs through the whole talk: vanity metrics such as followers and likes cannot inform a decision, while actionable metrics such as traffic, clicks, leads and conversions can. Her later, fuller treatment of the same ground is the guide to measuring social media success.
Measuring each goal
Traffic is the easiest: set an exact target, shorten every social link so you can count clicks, and use Google Analytics to see social traffic by network, its bounce rate and session duration, its goal completions and its user flow, because a network that sends less traffic that stays and acts can beat one that sends more that bounces. Brand awareness is harder but not impossible: follower counts are mostly vanity and often inaccurate, so use direct traffic and new versus returning visitors in Google Analytics, social listening for the brand name (not just the handle) to count mentions, following measured against engagement, and the new geographic regions your followers come from. Conversions are where the money is, and Google Analytics goals, revenue, acquisition, enquiry and engagement, each with a monetary value, are the best way to see conversion rate, completions and value by social network; network lead cards track subscribers directly. For qualified leads, log every social lead in a CRM with tags and use the same goals. Engagement is one of the easiest to measure: mentions via monitoring tools such as Agorapulse, Sprout Social, Brand24 or Brandwatch, plus comments, likes, shares and retweets from native analytics. The mechanics on one network in particular are in how to use Instagram analytics to grow the right followers, and the benchmark question, what counts as good engagement, is answered in average Instagram engagement rates by industry.
Advocates, customer service, influence, and what to do with the numbers
Brand advocates are the best marketing you can have because they have no vested interest; tools like Agorapulse tag ambassadors automatically and most analytics tools show your top sharers, so track that number, engage them and reward them. Customer service on social is now expected, and done quickly, politely and helpfully it builds the brand, as the Sainsbury’s exchange with a customer over a barcode-less battered fish showed when it turned into a pun-filled thread with a lot of positive attention; measure it with a management tool that reports response rate and time per team member. Influence is not follower count; a score such as Klout gives a rough progress marker, but the better measure is engagement rising over time, more shares, comments, conversations and people bringing you their questions. Then use the results: identify which platforms work and which do not and reallocate or quit; study which content earns shares, likes and comments and find the common thread in format or subject; and trace any spike to its cause, a post or a share by the right person, and replicate it. The strategy that all of this feeds is set out in social media marketing strategies that work in practice. She closed with the tools: Agorapulse (management, analytics, CRM tagging of influencers and ambassadors, content and team reports), Quintly (in-depth analytics across networks, custom dashboards, competitive benchmarks), Hashtagify (hashtag discovery and campaign tracking), Brandwatch (listening and sentiment), Brand24 (monitoring, sentiment, customer service replies, competitor comparison), a further analytics platform (reporting, automated reports and recommendations; its name is unclear in the recording) and Meltwater (media coverage, share of voice, sentiment and PR ROI). Her last words: set goals now, use SMART, check the relevant metrics, expect it to take time, and review regularly, especially at each goal’s deadline.
Frequently asked questions
What does Lilach Bullock’s social media measurement webinar cover?
Why measuring social media is the only way to know your time and money are paying off; how to set SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound); the difference between vanity metrics such as followers and likes and actionable metrics such as traffic, clicks, leads and conversions; how to measure each common goal, traffic, brand awareness, conversions, leads, engagement, brand advocates, customer service and influence; how to use the results to improve strategy; and a round-up of measurement tools.
What is the difference between vanity metrics and actionable metrics?
Vanity metrics, like follower counts and likes, make you feel good but do not help you make a decision. Actionable metrics let you act: traffic tells you which network and which post types to invest in, and clicks, leads and conversions tell you whether social media is doing its job. Followers still matter a little, but the focus should be on the metrics you can act on.
When was the webinar published and how long is it?
Simplilearn published the webinar on YouTube on 21 April 2017. It runs for about 33 minutes and is a presentation by Lilach Bullock without a live question session. Some tools mentioned, such as the Google URL shortener, Klout and Google+, have since closed; the measurement approach still applies.
Full transcript
Cleaned and condensed from the recording’s auto-generated captions. Filler removed, obvious caption errors fixed, meaning kept. The recording is Lilach’s presentation throughout; no host segment or question session is included.
Hi, thank you so much for inviting me to speak today. We are going to be going through a lot, looking at measuring your social media success, so get your pen and paper ready and turn off your devices so you don’t miss anything. I know as well as the next girl how easy it is to get distracted by emails, texts and social media. In this webinar we are going through everything involved in measuring your social media marketing success. You will learn how to set SMART goals for your social media marketing, how to differentiate between vanity metrics and actionable metrics, each social media goal and how to measure it, which KPIs to keep an eye on and how to use the results, and at the end some of the most useful tools for measuring social media success.
Just like any marketing effort, social media marketing is an investment. You spend time every day managing it and thinking of ways to improve your results, you spend money on tools, people to manage it, consultants, and you are using it to get results, whatever those may be. The only way to make sure your time and money are well spent and you are heading towards your goals is to measure your results. There are two main reasons to measure your social media ROI: first, to see whether the resources you invest are paying off; second, to see what is working and what isn’t, which helps improve your strategy. So measuring is more than controlling spend and making sure you are not throwing money at something that isn’t working. It is a way of identifying what works and what doesn’t so you can use that knowledge to get better results in future. Most marketing efforts are easier to measure. If you create an ad campaign, you track the clicks and conversions with built-in analytics. If you send an email with an exclusive offer, you track who clicked and who bought. With social media, things get more complex, because not all your goals are easily quantifiable, particularly in money. Consider engagement: it is extremely important and often a clear indicator of a successful campaign, but it doesn’t bring in income directly, or at least not income you can measure accurately. So how can you know whether your social media marketing is successful? By setting clear goals. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, how can you tell whether you have reached it? Before you measure, set your goals. They could be to increase traffic to your website, to increase brand awareness, to drive more conversions and sales, to find more qualified leads, to increase loyalty and build a community of brand advocates, to manage your public image and customer service, or to gain social media influence.
There are many goal-setting techniques, but one of the best in my opinion is SMART. First, be specific. The more specific the better: if you want more traffic, use something like “increase my Facebook traffic by 20 percent.” Wanting to increase traffic in general won’t help, because you can’t measure success accurately: if traffic rose by 2 percent, was that a success? Be specific and include numbers if you can. Next, your goal needs to be measurable, otherwise how will you know you achieved it, and with social media that can be particularly challenging. Goals need to be attainable: can I achieve this or is it wishful thinking? You might want to double your conversions from social media in a month, but is that achievable, or are you setting yourself up for failure? Social media takes time to grow, so be extra careful about attainability. Be true to yourself: is your goal relevant, will achieving it make a real difference to your overall success, and how will achieving or failing it affect your business objectives and values? And finally, is it time-bound? Give it a clear deadline, but a realistic one, because social media takes time to provide results. Be honest with yourself, don’t bite off more than you can chew, and don’t expect everything at once.
Before we go further, it is very important to distinguish vanity metrics from actionable metrics. Vanity metrics usually make you feel good about yourself, think number of followers or likes on your profiles, but they can’t help you make decisions about your social media strategy. Sure, it is great to have more followers, but what can you do with that information? These metrics still matter, but it is much better to focus on actionable metrics, which allow you to take action. Traffic is one example: you can focus your attention on the network that consistently brings in more traffic if that is your goal, or look at all your content, learn what types of posts drive the most traffic, and create more of those while dropping the ones that bring nothing. Other actionable metrics are the number of clicks, the number of leads and the number of conversions. Now let’s look at each type of goal and the main KPIs you need to measure.
Social media is a great tool for increasing website and blog traffic: promoting blog posts and other content, exclusive offers, giveaways and competitions, and your services or products. Thankfully it is also one of the easier goals to measure. First, know exactly what your goal is and set an exact number, for example raise traffic from Twitter by 10 percent in two months. Then start tracking. One easy way is a custom URL shortener; a word of warning that with Bitly others can check your stats by adding a plus sign to the end of the link, so I personally recommended Google’s shortener. Use a shortener for all the links you post on social media going to your blog or website. Their analytics are limited, but you see exactly how many clicks each link got. The best way, in my opinion, is to use the shortener together with Google Analytics, which shows a much more detailed account of your social traffic, not just how much but its quality. Check total social traffic under Acquisition, All Traffic, Channels, then click Social to see where it comes from. Alternatively, go to Social, then Network Referrals, but Acquisition gives more interesting stats. Consider the quality of the traffic: if people click but don’t spend more than a few seconds on your site, that traffic won’t help. Look at bounce rate and average session duration. If a source has a very high bounce rate, you may be better off focusing on a network that brings less traffic that stays a few minutes or takes an action. Another way to check quality is whether visitors completed any conversion goals. Google Analytics lets you set goals such as buying something or making a reservation, and assign a monetary value; once set up, you can track conversions much more easily, and I’ll come back to that. Another useful feature is User Flow, which shows the exact path your social media traffic took on your website: click where it says Country at the top of the user flow, choose Social, then Social Network, and highlight the traffic from any network to see its path.
Social media is a great tool for getting your name seen and heard by the right people. Everyone is on social media, so it is a great platform for increasing brand awareness, reaching new demographics and connecting with all sorts of people without spending a fortune on ads. It is a more organic way of getting your brand in front of the right eyeballs. But how do you measure brand awareness? It is not as easy as tracking traffic, but it is not impossible. The first instinct is to check followers, but we have said the follower number is mostly a vanity metric that won’t help you decide anything, and it is not always accurate: more followers doesn’t mean they are interested in what you say. Harsh, but true. On Twitter, many people follow only to get a follow back, and unless you look at your audience in depth, their interests and industry, the number itself doesn’t matter. Use other metrics instead. Google Analytics again: an increase in traffic can be a sign of increased awareness, but other metrics help more, even though they may not correlate only with social media if you are using other tactics. Under Acquisition, All Traffic, Channels, check your direct traffic, people who typed your URL, and check how much of your social traffic is new versus returning, which shows whether you have reached a larger audience in a meaningful way. But the best way to measure brand awareness on social media is social listening or monitoring. Set up a search for your brand name, because not everyone will use your handle, and check how many mentions you receive; that is one of the best indicators. Followers can be an indicator too, but not an effective one, so look at following versus engagement, and how the two evolve together. If you operate in a larger territory, check which new regions you have reached with a tool that analyses your followers’ locations; the more new regions, the more you are increasing awareness.
Getting lots of traffic is great, but that is not where the money is. The money is in conversions, leads and sales. We all want our traffic to take action: sign up for a newsletter, watch a video, stay a certain length of time, buy something, download an ebook, sign up for a trial. What counts as a conversion is up to you, as long as the visitor moves one step further down the sales funnel. It is a bit more difficult to track with social media. Setting goals in Google Analytics is arguably the best way. To set a goal, go to the Acquisition overview and click Get Started under Set Up a Goal, then use a template or create a custom goal. There are four main categories: revenue goals such as a reservation, payment or appointment; acquisition goals such as creating an account or signing up; enquiry goals such as viewing a product or service page, the contact page or your location, requesting an estimate or checking inventory or a schedule; and engagement goals, where the visitor played interactive media such as a video, demo or slideshow. Assign each a monetary value so your measurement is more accurate. Then, under Acquisition, All Traffic, All Channels, you can see your goal conversion rate, goal completions and the total value of conversions from social networks. If you use lead generation cards, on Twitter for example, track new subscribers with the network’s built-in analytics.
Social media can also be a great source of qualified leads. As you grow in popularity they may come to you directly or find you on social media, or you may find them yourself through monitoring. To measure this, keep track of every qualified lead you gain via social media. I recommend a customer relationship management tool where you add all qualified leads and group them with tags and comments identifying them as coming from social media. Use Google Analytics goals again, focusing on sign-ups to your newsletter, subscriber list or any programme on your site, views of your product, service, contact or location pages, and views of sales-related video or slideshows.
Many businesses use social media simply to interact and engage with their audience. Engagement, although it brings no income directly, is still one of the most important aspects of a successful social media presence. The more people interact with you organically, the bigger the chance you achieve any other goal: more engagement means more clicks and traffic, better reach and awareness, and more influence. Thankfully it is one of the easiest goals to measure. There are a few main metrics. First, mentions. Ideally don’t rely only on the mentions shown by the network’s analytics or your management tool, because people mention your brand without using your handle, and the only way to track all of them is a monitoring search for your brand name. Most management tools such as Agorapulse or Sprout Social do this, or use a dedicated monitoring tool like Brand24 or Brandwatch for more in-depth searches across networks. For the rest, use the networks’ built-in analytics and your management tool: are you getting more comments, how many people take the time to comment on your posts, how many likes, how many shares or retweets.
Through continuous engagement with your fans and followers, and by consistently posting great content, you can build a community of brand advocates and loyal fans. Brand advocates are amazing: there is nothing more effective than a regular person with no vested interest in your business promoting it to their friends and followers. Word of mouth is still one of the most effective forms of marketing, and social media takes it to the next level. To track your advocates, use a tool that tags them automatically, such as Agorapulse, whose CRM highlights brand ambassadors among your followers; most social analytics tools will also show your top users, the ones consistently sharing your content and interacting. Track how those numbers grow over time, and once you have identified your advocates, engage with them and reward them in some way to keep them, because by growing those relationships they will keep promoting your business, sharing your content and engaging with you, all for free, as opposed to using social influencers.
Another common use for social media is managing your business’s public image and customer service. Most of your audience is on social media, so they check out businesses there, and people increasingly use social media to ask businesses questions, make comments and even complain. Businesses need to be on top of these mentions and respond to customer service issues as soon as possible. Not doing so damages your image; being quick, polite and, most importantly, truly helpful can be very beneficial. Look at the exchange between Sainsbury’s and a customer who wanted to buy some battered fish that had no barcode. What would normally be a customer service issue turned into a hilarious conversation filled with fishy puns that attracted a lot of engagement and positive attention for Sainsbury’s. How good are you at customer service? The best way to find out is a social media management tool with team management and analytics, so you can track what each team member is doing, how long each takes to respond to mentions and questions, and the response rate.
Whether you are an entrepreneur, a business or a regular person, social media is a perfect platform for growing your online influence. Being more influential makes it easier to forge relationships with influencers in your niche, gain more engagement, followers, advocates and traffic, become a thought leader, and earn trust. How do you measure influence? As you have probably come to expect from me, I don’t think fans or followers determine influence. You could have hundreds of thousands of followers, but if they are not interacting, sharing and conversing, the number means little. To check your influence you can start with a tool like Klout, which studies your whole social presence and metrics and gives you a score; the higher the better. It is more of a vanity metric, but the science is good and it gives an idea of progress: as your score improves it shows you are active and likely getting more comments and mentions. Another way is to look at how engagement evolves over time: more shares and retweets of your social and blog posts, more comments and conversations, people coming to you with questions about your niche.
Now that we have gone through the goals and how to measure them, how do you use the results? It is not enough to measure; you have to use the knowledge to grow. As I said at the start, one main reason to measure is to improve your overall strategy. When you measure any goal, also identify what is helping you achieve it, or what is keeping you from it. Use analytics to find what works and what doesn’t, then focus more of your time and money on what works. Some examples of what you can learn. Which platforms work and which don’t: if you use several networks, check which bring notable results, then drop one or focus more attention on the best. What type of content gets the best results: as with blogging, your success depends largely on the content you post; if it attracts attention and gets people to share or comment, you are closer to your goals. Study your content to see what works, and find the common link among your most successful and least successful posts. Why do some get more shares, likes and comments, and how can you replicate that? It could be the format, your followers may prefer images, or the subject. Check for any big boost in engagement or traffic and find the cause: a particular post that was very successful, or the right person sharing one of your posts. Once you identify the cause, use it to replicate the success. Generally, focus a lot of attention on the posts you share and what makes them successful or not.
Now some useful tools. I have mentioned Agorapulse once or twice, because I think it is one of the best social media management tools, and it has very useful analytics: track brand awareness over time, see publishing and engagement stats together, and a very capable CRM that automatically tags influencers and brand ambassadors in your list, lets you organise followers with tags and notes to track qualified leads, analyses your best and worst content, and tracks team metrics such as response rate and time. Quintly is a professional social media analytics platform with in-depth analytics for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram and blogs; you can customise dashboards, set up the metrics and KPIs that matter to you, create competitive benchmark reports against industry standards or competitors, and track customer care with monitoring and response time. Hashtagify is a tool for discovering hashtags and top influencers in any niche and for tracking Twitter and Instagram hashtags; if you run a hashtag campaign you can see how many users used the hashtag, how many posts, and daily or total impressions. Brandwatch is a web monitoring and analytics tool for consumer feedback, social trends in your niche, competitor customer service issues and mentions, and sentiment around your business or hashtags; what makes it stand out is the power of its social listening and its actionable metrics on what people say about you and the sentiment behind it. Brand24 is similar: professional web and social monitoring with more in-depth analytics and complex searches, sentiment analysis, customer service replies from the dashboard, and comparison of your mentions and presence against competitors. The next tool, whose name is unclear in the recording, offers analytics for small and big businesses and agencies, with detailed reporting for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube covering engagement, content, audience, customer service and admin, plus automatic reporting and recommendations. Meltwater is a monitoring and analytics tool that is particularly good for tracking brand awareness: media coverage over time, share of voice against competitors, sentiment, and PR ROI with its advertising value equivalency feature.
So there we go, all the top social media goals you can set. The most important things to remember: start by setting goals for your social media marketing as soon as possible, use SMART to set realistic, measurable goals, and check the relevant metrics to measure success. Keep in mind that social media takes time to grow and get results; you can’t expect to boost everything within a month or you will be disappointed. But once it grows, social media can become one of your top sources of traffic and engagement, and a great source of qualified leads. Track your results regularly, particularly when you reach a goal’s deadline. Thank you so much.
