How do you determine if a social media campaign is successful?

[Michael]

The effects of social media in terms of marketing yourself is very much like the way that you socialize and network in the real world. When you socialize physically with other people, how can you be sure whether or not it was your socializing - rather than your other forms of marketing - that won business?

Google Analytics can be a great tool, if you use it right. You need to make sure that links contain directives to tell Google Analytics where you originally posted that link so that you can attribute that traffic source (and hopefully conversion) to a certain part of your campaign.

Even with proper links, though, Google Analytics only has the ability to show you the last step that conversion took before coming to your site. So how, even with Google Analytics, are you supposed to really know what the source of that conversion was?

The biggest thing to remember about a social media campaign is that, in order to be successful, it will be quite time consuming. You must remember to determine the potential return on investment of each social avenue you wish to pursue. The investment may not be directly monetary, but in this world time is money.