Social Media is not “free”. Considerable time, creative energy and knowledge goes into a successful Social Media presence. While every hour spent on your Social Media presence adds value to your business it is also important to know if your efforts are working.
You will hear me speak very little about strategy – because there are so many Social Media Experts that overuse the term. However, regardless of if you are using a blog for your business, Facebook for your club, Twitter for fun or Pinterest for your wedding planning, looking at the statistics of what messages worked and what didn’t is important and interesting.
Digital media tools give us so much more opportunity to measure the impact of our efforts. Compared to traditional marketing tools there are many more metrics that give us an idea if we reach the desired outcome of our efforts. However, what metrics do really count for you?
A “like” on a Facebook page or a follow on Twitter is not the same as a purchase decision. It is an invitation to engage in conversation. If our “marketing strategy” doesn’t allow for this and is based on broadcasting and self-promotion you have not gained anything more than impressive numbers on your profile.
For example: If you are selling ice cream cones the focus of your efforts should be how many people stopped by your location. How many local people knew about your new flavour and came to check it out. Don’t fall for “Social Media Experts” telling you that the 5000 Facebook likes you bought from them will make you sell one more ice cream cone.
Here is an interesting infographic by the guys at Inventhelp
I was surprised by some of these numbers - If you tell me in the comments what surprised you most, I’ll tell you my favourite statistic 
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