5 steps to measure social media campaign success

So you’ve spent the past few weeks working on a social media campaign or advertisement. All the copy has been written, creatives have been approved and it finally goes live. Just as you mentally clink champagne-filled glasses in your head, the results come back and it becomes evident that your campaign just hasn’t worked the way you hoped it would – and if your target audience is not responding, something is definitely wrong.

The devil’s in the numbers and crafting great content is important, but so is making sure that there are quantifiable and measurable metrics that can help you see where you went wrong and how you can do better next time. Here’s what you should do:

1. Define your goals

Before you get too excited and start going into the creative side of things, it is vital that you first define your campaign goals. What exactly are you trying to achieve from this campaign?

To help you along, think about the kind of social actions (eg. like, react, share, comment, tag) you want your audience to take when interacting with your campaign. This can be measured in terms of impressions, shares, clicks, sessions or purchase actions.

2. Choose appropriate metrics that correspond with your goals

Most Facebook campaigns have two main goals: Driving traffic and increasing engagement & awareness.

To drive traffic, track all URLs you post on social media so you know how many clicks and conversions you’re getting. To do this, you can use Google’s URL builder to set your link’s parameters.

TIP: Google’s URL builder is linked to your Google Analytics account so it will reflect what your audience clicked on as well as other key insights. All this should give you a better understanding of what interests your audience

To measure engagement and awareness, look at the reach, number of shares, likes and comments under your posts. These are telling because it will provide you with insight into what prompts someone to take certain actions.

3. Measure

Now that you’ve got your campaign and the right metrics, the next step is to measure performance. What good is a campaign if you don’t know how or if it actually helps fulfill your goals?

Facebook’s Power Editor is a good tool for looking at different kinds of metrics that may be relevant to your campaign. However, you should also be looking at numbers from Google Analytics. Linking up your Facebook page to Google Analytics is key and it’s pretty simple.

TIP: Remember to link Facebook and Google Analytics BEFORE you launch your campaign.

4. Track and Optimise

Track your numbers over a period of time and review them weekly. You’ll have some good weeks and some bad ones so don’t stress if there are occasional dips in performance, but be alert to any trends that may be forming within your audience.

For example, if you notice that more women from your timeline tend to click into your website, while men visit via the Facebook ads on the right-hand-side column, the content that you push out can be better tailored to these specific behaviours. Knowing the small details will help you improve your content so you’ll be able to target your audience more accurately.

Next, optimise the results. Optimisation is a broad term and really depends on the situation. This might mean having to shut down posts or ads that aren’t doing well in certain placements. Instead, you can use that budget for others that are giving you good and consistent results. Try switching up your copy, your creatives or even changing your audience segments – see what works best for your business.

5. Evaluate

This is how you’ll know whether your campaign was a huge success or perhaps why it flopped. It may be a trial and error process in the beginning but dealing with analytics earlier helps you understand your audience so you can tailor your campaigns better.

When it comes to social media, the numbers don’t lie. You can have great content but it must be effective in reaching your audience, otherwise it’s like hosting an amazing party with no guests!

Need help getting your social media content in tip-top shape? Write to us at [email protected].

Go small or go home: Why boutique PR agencies are crushing big firms

At the speed of digital trends, do you want a PR agency that’s agile like a fox or sturdy like a buffalo?

Big PR firms have the manpower, resources, and contacts to execute campaigns quickly, but advances in technology means brands need the flexibility to pivot to suit the mood of today’s on-demand audience.

Here are a couple reasons why you should hire a boutique agency over a big firm:

Skilled Staff

More manpower doesn’t mean a higher quality of work. At some larger agencies, smaller accounts may be handed down to junior members or even interns.

At a boutique agency, there is a specialist for everything. By nature, these smaller companies follow lean organisational structures stripped of multiple management levels and stringent systems and constant revision. This makes the team more nimble, enough to weave past unnecessary approval processes that eat up your billable hours.

They’re part of the ‘hacker generation’

Smaller companies tend to have a startup mentality: Fearless, resourceful, unorthodox problem solvers.

They are known to approach barriers from the outside and sometimes, through the backdoor instead of waiting for the higher-ups to approve a solution. On top of that, staff at leaner agencies enjoy taking the unconventional routes that keeps them on track with or sometimes even ahead of the consumers.

They thrive on change

Change is the constant of boutique PR firms, and they are well-equipped to move along with key industry trends and developments. Rather than fearing new technology, smaller agencies race to be the first to use a new platform or tackle a new social media trend.

With fewer people, revisions are also easier for boutique agencies. If an internal structure is holding back results, managers at small agencies will not hesitate to remove or reform them, to power your business and theirs forward.

Skilled Staff

With the internet bubbling over with too much information, brands need more creativity, quicker.

It’s become clear that advertising is no longer just the business of selling your product or services. Instead, it is now all about making their brand a part of the customer’s everyday life. In order to be there with the customer every step of the way, brands need to be able to tailor strategy at the very last minute.

This is typically where the big players have struggled to keep up, given their internal business reglementations put in place to ensure consistent organisational structures.

What I feel is imperative for businesses today, is to steer themselves away from the traditional view of how bigger or more is better. This can be done through re-evaluating business goals and looking further into what the boutiques can bring to their table, helping business owners get the best bang for their buck.

Need more advice on choosing the right agency for your business? Contact us at [email protected]

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