How to Measure Your Social Media Effectiveness Using Free and Inexpensive Tools

How to Measure Your Social

Media Effectiveness

Using Free and Inexpensive

Tools

NCDC Conference 2013

by Jim StipeDigital and Visual MediaCatholic Relief Services

We’re here to answer two questions today…

1.Is your social media effective?

2.How do you know?

But first…

a QUIZ

Do you know…1. The best times to send tweets for your particular

followers?

2. What your re-tweet rate is? (How often your tweets get re-tweeted)

3. Which links in your tweets/posts got the most clicks (“click-throughs”) in the past month?

4. What percentage of people come to your website through social media?

Do you know…5. Who your top 10 Twitter followers

are?

6. What your 5 most effective tweets and Facebook posts were in the past month?

7. What the 5 most effective types of post content are for your audience?

If you don’t know the answers to those questions, you’re in the right workshop.

What’s the whole point of measuring effectiveness?

Two simple reasons.

#1 To have some objective measure of how your social media efforts are doing.

#2 But more importantly, to figure out what works well, what doesn’t, and change your strategy based on concrete information.

To measure effectiveness, you need to do 3 things:1.Decide what you’re trying to get

people to do2.Establish goals for each of those3.Use tools to measure how close

you are to your goals

What are you trying to get people to do?

What are you trying to get people to do?• follow or friend you• “like” posts• repost or retweet• click on links in your posts/tweets• engage in a conversation by

commenting or replying

What are you trying to get people to do?• Promote you• Defend you if needed• Go to your website• Read your web posts• Donate• Volunteer

Here is what we want to measure:• follow or friend you• “like” posts• repost or retweet• click on links in your posts/tweets• engage in a conversation by

commenting or replying

Now that we know what we want people to do, here is what we can measure each month:

Twitter Monthly Stats• How many followers did you gain?• How many tweets did you send?• How many retweets did you get?• What was your retweet rate?

(Divide your number of retweets by your number of tweets)

Twitter Monthly Stats• How many click-throughs did you get

for your top 10 click-throughs?• How many potential impressions did

you get?• What were your top 5 most re-tweeted

tweets?• What were your top 5 tweets that

reached the highest number of impressions?

Facebook Monthly Stats• Which day had the highest number

of likes? What did you post that day?• Did your likes, comments and shares

go up?• What were the top 5 posts for reach,

and also for engagement?• What were your best post types

(photos vs. links)?

How do you decide on your goals for each?• Measure your own activity for 3

months to get a baseline and determine what’s realistic.

• Get statistics on organizations similar to yours for comparison.

Choose 3 organizations like yours and get the following stats for each:

Competitors’ Twitter stats• How many followers they have• How many tweets they send on

average per day• Calculate their retweet rate is

Competitors’ Facebook stats• How many friends they have• How many posts per day• How many likes per post• How many comments they’re

getting

Competitors’ Scores

• What is their Klout score?• What is their Kred score?

Once you have your own 3-month baseline and competitors’ stats for comparison, you can decide on your goals.

So far we’ve talked about:• What you want people to do (that

is, what you want to measure)• How to decide on goals to measure

success

Now it’s time to learn the tools you can use to measure your social media activity

Facebook

Using Facebook Insights

Twitter ToolsSee handout for information on:

• Twitonomy• Crowdbooster• Social Bro• Tweetreach• Social Mention• Simply Measured

• Hootsuite• Bit.ly• Sprout Social• Klout• Kred