The growing success for businesses on social media is no secret, especially when 83 percent of marketers ranked advertising on social platforms the second most successful marketing channel.

But how are businesses gaining and measuring success on social platforms?

Well for one, businesses can gain market intelligence such as consumers’ interests, customer feedback, and competitor research. They can expand their reach for more market opportunities whilst promoting valuable and relevant content, consistently. This allows the business to increase the brand’s visibility on search engines. Additionally, a positive brand experience on social media can generate inbound traffic to increase business revenue and improve brand perception.

Market data revealed that 81 percent of shoppers research online before purchasing and over half (54 percent) of social media users research products specifically on social platforms. Social media platforms are becoming a search engine for consumers when looking for products and of course, if a brand has a higher-performing social page, the intent of the customer to buy is greater.

Yet, with all the opportunities available to businesses on social media, 61 percent of marketers still find it challenging to generate traffic and leads.

Re-evaluating your social media marketing strategy for greater success and maintaining a resilient mindset are your first steps towards overcoming these challenges. 

1. Complete a Social Media Audit

A social media audit provides the basis for a data-driven social media marketing strategy. It helps you to understand best practices going forward. The social media audit starts with reviewing your metrics (engagement rates) so that you can develop analytics. See some examples below.

What type of content on social media performs the highest?

This metric is normally based on the number of shares, likes, comments, mentions, and profile visits one piece of content generates. If your business has already posted a diverse range of content formats, your audit can be more specific in terms of highest-performing content such as videos on Facebook stories or maybe Instagram reels. 

“A data-driven social media marketing strategy is a recipe for success.” The Stylista Group

Who is your audience, when to engage, and what are their interests?

Instagram ‘Audience’ Insights provides location when users are most active online, and demographical data such as age range and gender. If you are running ads, Facebook Insights allows your business to understand conversion rates for different content formats so that you will be able to tailor your ads for higher ROI future campaigns.

If your business utilizes several social platforms, why not make your reporting easier by consolidating all metrics into one? Some of the best social media monitoring and social listening platforms include Hootsuite, Buffer Analytics, or Sprout Social.

2. Set your social media goals

Once you have reviewed your data and conducted a social media audit, you can start setting your social media goals. A good and effective method used by industry experts is known as SMART goals. The SMART goal acronym can be broken down into the following:

• Specific – What do you want to achieve and why? For example, you want to run a social media campaign on Instagram to increase website traffic by 30% to meet the business objectives.
• Measurable – How will you measure your success, what are the key performing indicators? Your KPI’s can be to increase weekly link clicks by 10% in your Instagram bio and stories.
• Achievable – How can you achieve your goal? Your social media audit can help with what content formats should you use and how long you should run your social media campaigns?
• Relevant – Is the social media goal relevant to achieving your overall business objectives such as increasing website traffic to convert, thereby generating higher revenue?
• Time-bound – How long will it take to achieve your goal?

3. Get creative with relevant content and engage

Creating content that is relevant and valuable to an audience is key to capturing their attention. But it’s no longer just an aesthetic image of your latest beauty device and where to buy. Businesses must get creative and leverage engagement opportunities. This can include:

• user-generate content such as influencer campaigns with video testimonials
• educational insights such as “How to” videos
• live streaming auctions and giveaways on Instagram and Facebook

According to Hootsuite, think “conversation” – not “broadcast”. Too often many businesses are using social media as a press release platform to announce a new product or service to a large audience. However, this strategy is not sustainable. Engagement is a two-way communication and in a competitive landscape, your customer has the choice to engage with brands who are relatable, relevant, and considerate of their audience.