Social Media Measurement: Fact vs. Fiction
Not using free analytics tools as a part of your Social Media Measurement?
Dude, that’s like worshiping the Flying Spaghetti Monster — it’s completely ridiculous!
The truth is you can mine all sorts of useful information from readily available data, but you’ve got to know which free tools to use to track links and interpret what it all means. Let’s talk about how you can kick ass with your social measurement…
Conversations to Conversions
The first post in this series, Social Media Marketing Measurement, focused on the 9 questions you should be asking yourself to map out the criteria for a successful campaign. Now let’s take a look at some of the free tools you can use:
- Bit.ly
- HootSuite
- Google Analytics
- Web Forms
Bit.ly and Hootsuite will monitor all of the clicks that come from the content you share, and this is important, but there’s more to tracking than just shooting out a tweet with your tracking URL.
One strategy I use is to shorten a URL with two different tracking services and post the link — using the same message and sharing the same content — in different places (like Facebook, Twitter, and in blog comments). You’ll be able to see which network drives the most clicks.
So clicks are great, and conversations are even better, but what about conversions? What does the landing page look like that you share with visitors?
*Tip: Don’t drive people to all of your different social networks unless you want them to become a fan or subscriber. Instead, send them to your website/blog, the central hub of your social media presence.
The bottom line is you want to share information intelligently in ways that start conversations and get people excited about … YOU. This means clicks, sure, but even better is subscribers and customers. Check out the video tutorial for more actionable social media measurement tools:
