When social media first started to gain traction, one reason some businesses were hesitant to take social media marketing seriously is that it was challenging to measure the full impact of a social media strategy. Fortunately, both social networks and third-party tools have gone to great lengths to make it much easier to accurately measure social media efforts.

Thanks to all the effort that has been put into this channel, it’s now possible to see exactly what kind of results a social media management strategy is yielding for a business. So whether your business is just getting started with social media or you’re interested in different ways to measure your existing efforts, let’s take a look at the best new options for understanding what exactly social media is doing for your business:

Know Which Metrics Really Matter

While social media can be used to bring new customers to your business, that doesn’t mean revenue or profits per customer are ideal metrics for social media tracking. Instead, more marketers and businesses are shifting their focus to metrics like numbers of followers/friends and buzz indicators. Ensuring you’re paying attention to the right metrics is the best way to properly frame social within the context of your full sales and marketing strategy.

Prioritize Total Interactions

Whether it’s a comment, like, share, retweet, or other social interaction, research has found that these engagement points significantly increase the likelihood of increased traffic to a website. Given that direct correlation, it’s worth taking note of all social interactions instead of getting hung up on just one or two.

Is Customer Lifetime Value the Most Useful Metric?

Although social media data has a lot to offer to marketers and businesses, it’s often a topic that makes people feel overwhelmed. The most common reason for this reaction is that there’s a lot to digest. Since it’s now possible to see so much data, making sense of it all can seem like an uphill task.

For anyone in this position, one solution is to pick a single metric to focus on above all others. When it comes to social media and the rest of a business, many feel that customer lifetime value is the ideal metric. The reason is this metric can help businesses see exactly what they’re getting out of their social media investments. While properly measuring the impact of social on customer lifetime value can be challenging, it’s a task that can definitely be worth pursuing.

If you want to learn even more about how to fully utilize social to promote your business, my social media training and social media certification program can provide all the knowledge you need to succeed.