How to Measure Leads Through Social Media

Every day, your customers are active on a huge range of channels, including social media. If you’re not present and engaging with them across all of these social media platforms… it’s killing your reputation, lead generation, and your bottom line.

How you define a quality “lead” depends on your industry, campaign, and goals. Generally speaking, a quality lead will include useful information and clear signs of intent to engage with your business.

Social media is now the preferred business contact platform. Use this to your advantage by actively engaging with (and converting) prospects and customers on all modern channels such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit. If you’re collecting social media leads, you need to be collecting analytics insights. Whether it’s product sales or new client and services type leads. How do you measure it coming from social media? Here are a few ways:

• Google Analytics. Watch and review social media platform traffic (goals) in Google Analytics to track leads on your website. This will allow you to monitor which social media platform is the best source for your business. If you notice, for example, that Twitter outperforms Facebook, it may be worth redoubling efforts on that platform.
• Social analytics tools. Tools such as Keyhole, Sprout Social, and Hootsuite also allow you to identify the type of creative and messaging (posts) that performs best. Most of these tools offer easy-to-review dashboards that offer metrics such as the number of impressions, reach, posts, and engagements that certain accounts or hashtags you are getting from each individual platform.
• Engagement. Engagement is one of the most valuable metrics in measuring social media lead generation. You need to evaluate if you’re engaging with the right audience, how they are interacting with your brand, and what they are doing to engage with your topic and spread your content. The ideal engagement metrics include the number of likes, comments, shares, and re-tweets.
• Tracking via a specific social media “discount code” or “social shopping”. Many brands offer customers a discount code in exchange for a product or newsletter sign-up. Discount codes or rewards points encourage customers to make a return visit to your site, and ideally a purchase. If you plan to offer one, have a strategy in place for not just generating leads, but also nurturing and converting them.
• Social Media Ads metrics. The main metrics include Reach, Impressions, and Click-Through Rate.
• Link Tracking on Social. Link tracking answers the question – “How did you find us? It involves tracking the number of clicks obtained by specific links on your social media posts. Link tracking is helpful in monitoring if your audience is clicking on links associated with your ads.

The above bullets can help you measure leads coming back through Social Media. In the meantime, what can actually help boost the % Leads using social media? 5 tips are below…

• Optimize your profile. Your profile should provide the means for customers to contact you, sign up for your newsletter, shop, contact information, YouTube channel, etc. Your profile should always include a “link back” to your business website. Make sure to “Add a link” to your bio.
• Create clickable content. Without compelling content, you won’t collect leads (clicks). Clickable content includes social media posts. Social Media posts include clickable content such as blog posts, YouTube channel content, and call to action type of content (landing pages) that can be SHARED.
• Use social lead ads. Call to action ads can be posted on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Linkedin, etc. Your best-performing Twitter posts can be “boosted” (just like paid ads) across that platform where you can dial in demographics such as gender, age, geography, etc.
• Share testimonials as social proof. Customer stories and testimonials can give you the social proof you need to acquire new leads. Showcasing how clients have benefited from your products and services to demonstrate your brand value. Add these stories and testimonials to your website.
• Leverage social media sponsorships. Instead of using paid ads, you could also attract leads from the social media content that your target audience is already consuming. Consider sponsoring shows, content, and YouTube channels that are popular with your target audience.

Author: Online Marketing Juice

Digital + Social Media Marketing. I hold a B.A. in Economics & Marketing from the University of California. SEC and FINRA Social Media compliance best practices: HubSpot Academy Social Media Certified. "Open to new clients" Disclaimer: This is my personal blog. The views expressed on these pages are mine alone and not those of my employer. View all posts by Online Marketing Juice