Measurable: Social Media Marketing & Analytics

Social Media Marketing (SMM) often gets a bad-wrap in the business world. So many people enjoy spending time on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram that there is a popular conception that social media marketers are spending their day browsing their Facebook feed and collecting a paycheck. However, SMM doesn’t have to be that way – quality and trustworthy marketers understand that all successful campaigns need to be data-driven and measurable.

Data-driven SMM is built on the solid foundation of target audiences, past successes, past failures, and market trends. The same standards apply across the marketing world – whether you’re pursuing email, social, or traditional channels; marketers should be building on the stability of data. And given the explosion in measurable, collectable, and actionable data over the last two decades, there is no excuse for marketing firms that launch campaigns that are not data-driven.

Just as SMM should begin with solid, actionable data; so should the results be tracked and measured. The results of marketing campaigns are of great interest to both the marketing firm (to grow and learn) and their clients (to ensure ROI). If your marketing firm doesn’t provide open, honest, and measurable results from their work, then it is time to start shopping for a new marketer!

When it comes to launching a data-driven and measurable social media campaign, there are three basic steps:

1. Use Existing Data – Hopefully you have access to existing analytical data regarding your website. The first step to creating a data-driven social media marketing campaign is mining this data. Determine what demographics are already visiting your site and converting to customers – age, geographic location, and sex should all be used to narrow the audience to target with your new marketing campaign. Once you have established a target audience you are ready to move on to the next step: setting measurable goals.
2. Set Measurable Goals – The bedrock of any marketing campaign should be setting (and hopefully attaining) measurable and attainable goals. Determine what your goals are (page views, newsletter signups, sales, downloads, etc.) and use them to shape your marketing campaign. Google has some of the most powerful analytic tools available – allowing users to set goals and track the results accordingly. They provide a basic overview of these tools on the Google Analytics support page.
3. Track Results – Follow up the data- and goal-based launch with close tracking of your results – again Google provides powerful tools for keeping a close eye the outcome of various campaigns. Setting up UTM (Urchin Traffic Monitor) Parameters allows close tracking of your campaign’s performance. While the details are beyond the scope of this article, UTM parameters allow a user to track the clicks and behavior resulting from a social media marketing program. They can be set up to provide separate results for different channels, programs, or even for each individual post. Harnessing this powerful tools allows marketers to do extensive performance- and A/B-testing.

Building data-driven and trackable social media marketing campaigns is good for both clients and marketers. It proves that SMM is a concrete and established branch of the marketing world and provides valuable ROI information for business owners. The future of business marketing is bound up in the future of social media – and finding a firm that can provide solid, measurable, attainable, and trackable marketing campaigns is key to tapping into the ever-expanding social media audience.

Fusion Group USA provides SMM services that always start with solid data and build on measurable goals and trackable results. Contact us today to set up a consultation and see how we can help your business succeed in the world of social media marketing.