So Many Metrics Tools, So Little Time!

Among the most asked questions regarding the use of social media in marketing is “How can I measure its effectiveness?”. If you’ve found yourself asking it as well, you’re certainly not alone.

Knowing which metrics to measure by is the most logical starting point. First, you have to determine what your end goal is for using social media. Are you after increased traffic or links to your site? Sales? Looking to build buzz for a new company or product? Improving customer relations? Or are you more interested in using it for PR and branding? Honestly, the possibilities are endless, but to develop a strategy that gives you what you want, you have to know what you want. Google’s Analytics tool, among others, can help you figure where you are now and help compare starting stats to future ones and track your return on investment (ROI).

Now comes the fun part – finding the tools that can help your efforts along. You’ll likely find a slew of lists that offer up the latest and greatest in social media metrics. Some of the tools are free, while others are paid. Here is a list of a few that can help you track your stats:

*Feedburner – lets you start your own feed and provides stats, such as subscribers, reach and popular feed items.

*TweetReach – provides stats and metrics for PR/Marketing pros (these can get expensive as each topic requires its own “tracker”)

*Google Analytics – offers stats of your site, such as who’s coming from where and with what keywords…can also be added to FB now

*Social Report – provides analytics/reports for all social profiles and websites (free trial with paid starting at $9/mo)

*PostRank – tracks social engagement of your profiles, site and even PDFs, etc…also tracks competition (free and paid plans)

*Social Media Monitor – tracks and compares brands while allowing both individuals and professionals, businesses, etc. to create their own campaigns (free and paid versions)

*SocialBlaze – tracks and reports on conversions directly related to Twitter and Facebook campaigns, pinpoints brand evangelists, as well as which individual posts, etc. brought the traffic in

If you’re looking to build buzz, doing a simple search in any other the social sites (or Technorati-type sites for blogs) for your industry, product-type and/or keyword to get a list of who may be interested in knowing about it (and passing it along to others). This may be singly or in tandem with other demographics and SEO efforts.

It really pays to do your due diligence in finding the social sites and analytics you need to run effective marketing campaigns via social media. The more you can discover about your fans, followers and influencers, the more you can target your efforts and the better off your campaigns (and ROI) will be.

Interactive Insights Group has an article that covers more information on social media metrics. Definitely check this out for one of the most comprehensive lists you’ll find!