First, if you’re completely new to all of this, you might be wondering what a social media strategy actually is. A social media strategy is how a business uses social media to meet its communication aims “and the supporting platform and tools it will use to achieve this” (Gurd, 2017). To help you see if your social media strategy is effective, we’ve come up with a check list of five points.
- Determine your social media objectives
The first step in determining whether your social media strategy is effective is to define your objectives for your social media. Doing this gives you something to measure your effectiveness against. For example, one of your objectives might be to increase your followers to reach a certain number, to generate referrals or to increase your sales revenue by a certain percentage (DeMers, 2017).
Lua (2017) suggests objective ideas that you might want to use to help you meet your business goals.
- Find which metrics to use
The second way to tell if it’s effective is by using metrics. It’s important to not just focus on a single metric but instead look at a variety. For example, your follower count might be growing, but if your sales aren’t increasing then essentially it means nothing. One metric that could be used alongside another is conversion rate. This looks at the number of people that visited your website, from your social media, to those that convert into actual sales. However, Henwood (2015) argues that whilst vanity metrics such as follower count, won’t tell you your progress and won’t necessarily help you meet your objectives, it will tell you if people are interested in your content, which is a key driver in a social media strategy. Or, you could look at a combination of metrics such as follower count, website traffic and sales revenue (DeMers, 2017). The interpretation of all the metrics suggested will indicate whether your social media strategy is effective.
- Are your followers engaging with your posts?
Engagement is a good way to tell if your social media strategy is working. If your followers are regularly commenting and liking your posts, it indicates that they like what you’re posting. If your followers aren’t engaging with your posts, it may be time to change the content that you’re posting. Have a look at your posts that have performed well and find out what kind of posts your followers want to see (Lake, 2009).
Davis (2016) has researched 30 brands that have an excellent social media strategy so if you’re struggling to make yours work, it may be worth looking at these brands to see what they’re doing.
ASOS is an example of a brand that has good engagement with their posts.
4. Pay attention to your analytics
Take some time each month to look at your analytics. You can set up Google Analytics to look at your incoming social media traffic to your website. The social media platfoms you use will also have their own analytics section so you can see which posts are performing the best. Analytics is a good indicator as to whether your strategy is working. From that, you can alter your strategy to fit what your followers want to see you posting (Eclincher, 2016).
If you’re worried your social media strategy isn’t working, Pressault (2016) suggests the warning signs that you may want to look out for.
5. Are you meeting your objectives?
Ultimately, the main way to tell if your social media strategy is effective for your business is by conversion rates and whether you’re reaching your objectives (Rogers, 2017). Also, make sure that when you’re choosing your metrics, that you’re choosing ones that are relevant for your objectives. For instance, your objective may be to increase sales revenue through driving traffic to your site via your social media. Therefore, you will want to be checking on your sales revenue and website traffic statistics to measure how well you are meeting your objectives (Deering-Davis, 2012).
Newlands (2017) gives his top tips for what makes a great social media strategy and how you can achieve it.
Effing and Spil (2016) agree with the above points and stress the importance that social media should have a clear purpose to be effective and that the objectives need to be SMART so that you have something to measure your effectiveness against. They also add that the overall success of a social media strategy depends on “your resources and the quality and authenticity of your message”.
So that’s a roundup of five key points you can use to indicate whether your social media strategy is effective. Make sure you’re regularly checking your strategy as social media is constantly changing and thus your strategy will need to as well.
Reference List
- Davis, B. (2016). 30 brands with excellent social media strategies. [Online]. Available at:https://econsultancy.com/blog/68167-30-brands-with-excellent-social-media-strategies [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- Deering-Davis, J. (2012). The 5 easy steps to measure your social media campaigns. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/social-media-measurement/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- DeMers, J. (2017). How can you tell if your social media strategy is working? [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/10/30/how-can-you-tell-if-your-social-media-strategy-is-working/#14335a1c20d3 [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- (2016). Is your social media marketing campaign working? [Online]. Available at: https://eclincher.com/blog/is-your-social-media-marketing-campaign-working/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- Effing, R. & Spil, A.A.M. 2016, “The social strategy cone: Towards a framework for evaluating social media strategies”, International journal of information management, vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 1-8
- Gurd, J. (2017). 6 reasons why you need a social media strategy. [Online]. Available at: https://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/social-media-strategy-planning-essentials-6-reasons-need-social-media-strategy/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- Henwood, A. (2015). 5 ways to tell if your social media strategy is working. [Online]. Available at: https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/5-ways-to-tell-if-your-social-media-strategy-is-working/453300/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
- Lake, C. (2009). 10 ways to measure social media success. [Online]. Available at: https://econsultancy.com/blog/3407-10-ways-to-measure-social-media-success [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
- Lua, A. (2017). 9 social media goals you can set yourself for your business (and how to track them). [Online]. Available at: https://blog.bufferapp.com/10-social-media-goals [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- Newlands, M. (2017). 10 social media marketing strategies for companies. [Online]. Available at: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/293321 [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].
- Pressault, A. (2017). Is your social media strategy tanking? Here are 8 potential reasons why. [Online]. Available at: https://blog.hootsuite.com/is-your-social-media-strategy-tanking-here-are-8-potential-reasons-why/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017]
- Rogers, C. (2017). Mondelēz, Peugeot and Dixons Carphone’s tips to maximise digital effectiveness. [Online]. Available at: https://www.marketingweek.com/2017/04/10/tricks-and-tips-to-maximise-digital-effectiveness/ [Last accessed on 26 November 2017].