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

[curious_j]

[Justin]

That's a hard question to answer right now as it's up for debate. Social media seems to sit this weird mix between sales, brand development, and heavy consumer interaction so it's a little weird. Here are a few things to consider though:

- It's about long term development, not short term profitability.
- You've successfully influenced viewers on elements regarding your brand, etc.
- You've set the set the stage for higher purchasing
- You've made people excited in some way about your brand.
- And to reference Godin, you've told a story.

[Michael]

This depends on how you are handling your social media.

Are you using it primarily for branding, or are you linking offsite to blogs, websites, etc?

If you are linking to a website, Google analytics can tell you where traffic is coming from, which for the social networks can tell you how effective specific linkings have been.

It's more difficult to get quantitative data if you're a business trying to get people physically through the door; one trick a friend used to use is to create "event pages" for social networks, do research on what confirmed guests look like, and see if they actually show up. Obviously a very mom and pops strategy, but it worked even better when he knew who they were walking through the door!

[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.