Do You Know if Social Media Marketing is Working?

Business owners may devote hours and hours each week to reaching customers through social media outlets like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. But, according to a recent survey, 30 percent of entrepreneurs are unsure of their social media efforts are having any impact on sales.

“If social media is used to specifically generate sales, without a strategic campaign in place, there’s no way to measure it,” says Mardy Sitzer, president of Bumblebee Design & Marketing. She suggests three ways to track digital interactions with your customers to determine if they’re generating sales success.

Check progress with a CRM system

Your contact relationship management (CRM) system can track the social media platform you used to make contact with prospects and clients. This way, Sitzer says, you’ll know which outlets lead to lucrative deals more so you can tailor your social media strategy to optimize sales.

Track traffic through a landing page

Driving traffic from Facebook and Twitter promotions to specific landing pages on your website allows you to track the success of your social media efforts, says Sitzer. Since potential clients will most likely find this page through links on a specific social media platform, programs like Google Analytics can determine exactly which networking sites pulled visitors to your website.

Use discount codes

“You can track a lot of information by using unique discount codes,” Sitzer says. When your customers use social-media promoted discounts on your website, your online shopping cart or registration system tags the transaction with the code used. By using different discount codes for each social media platform, you can easily determine which platform the majority of clients are coming from.