Imagine Your Reality

After you’ve spent some on social media, it’s important to start analyzing how you are using social media as well as what the impact of that use is on your web traffic and business success. This step is important because you need to determine if your basic strategies for social media are working, as well as what sites are proving most useful for you.

To do this analysis, it helps to have a web analytics tool on your website such as google analytics or clicky. These will allow you to track where your traffic is coming from when they come to your website. But web analytics is just the start. You will also want to note on which sites you get the most responses, as well as how people are responding. For Twitter you will want to use Klout, which will allow you to see your analytics for Twitter. Unfortunately other social networking sites don’t have analytics, but you can still keep track by noting how people are responding to your posts.

For example, when I post a discussion to a linkedin group, part of how I rate the effectiveness of that strategy is by checking my blog for the amount of traffic that came to it as a result of the discussion post. I also check and see how many responses come in (and make sure I respond to them). Finally if people want to connect with me as a result of the post, that also tells me I’vve had an impact.

Because different social networking sites have different strategies, what works on one may not be the same as what works on other. As you learn how to use each site and interact with people, you’ll also to start learn what strategies work and which ones don’t. Keep track of each strategy and note the kind of responses you get. If you don’t get the response you want, then experiment.

At the same time you need to recognize how much time and effort you are willing to put into a site, if its not producing an impact that’s useful. Some social media sites aren’t going to fit your strategies, no matter what you do. Some are poorly designed and trying to use them is more of a headache than its worth.

Ultimately to analyze your social media presence, you need to look at your presence and where you spend time and what responses you get. Develop strategies that cultivate those responses and build relationships. Keep track using analytics, but if necessary keep a spreadsheet as well with each social networking site on it and track by number the responses and interactions you get. By continually keeping track you’ll be able to determine what sites are working with your social media strategy.