In our previous blog, we discussed setting objectives and linking strategy to ensure that they are met. This can be a tricky part of social media marketing for small businesses. Finding the right tools to help you reach your goals is a key aspect of any digital marketing undertaking. Once you have outlined your strategy and objective, the next challenge is finding out how best to link them to a measurable metric.

Determining Your KPI’s

A vital element of any objective is ensuring that it is measurable. With so many terms and metrics in the digital marketing world, how do you decide which ones to keep an eye on? The answer often lies in your objective. By stripping it down to the very basics you can often determine exactly what it is that your digital marketing strategy needs to deliver.

For example: If your business is geared towards making sales from an online platform, objectives could include encouraging traffic to that site or targeting conversions. Keeping this in mind, you would need to consider the number of website visits that your site or platform is receiving. However, it is not always that simple.

Each unique objective will have a specific measurable. This is a key indicator of the performance of that aspect of the strategy. These “key performance indicators” or KPI’s are essential to keep tabs on whether your strategy is effective. Is it performing in the ways that you need it to in order to reach your objectives? As a business owner, you’d want to be sure that the spend you’re investing in digital marketing is yielding results. This will drive your business towards growth.

Linking KPI’s to Objectives

Now that you’ve determined your KPI’s, have a look at how you set up your strategy towards achieving them. If you are hoping to increase traffic to your website, are you giving social media users access to links that encourage them to click through to it? Are you running the correct type of advert on social media platforms? Are you using the right platforms for your target market? There are a variety of elements that need to be considered. These could help you achieve the best possible results in each of your KPI’s.

Whilst it may be easy to consider reaching ten thousand likes as success in social media marketing for small businesses, these metrics mean very little if they do not serve the objectives of your business. Determining success on social media is significantly more complex than likes and follows. There are several other important metrics to consider other than those that look good at face value. These “vanity metrics” are seldom of use to the business goals and are often viewed as an indicator of success by those who aren’t familiar with your goals.

Once you have clearly and definitively chosen the KPI’s, they need to be effectively and consistently monitored. By keeping tabs on the results on a weekly/monthly basis, you can make adjustments to compensate for any shortcomings. You can also take advantage of growth in key areas.

For example: After running social media adverts for 2 weeks, you may look at your website data and realise that seventy per cent of your website traffic from social media is coming from Instagram. This would indicate that you adjust your advert placement to reach more Instagram users. Or, that you should allocate additional budget to advertising on Instagram as opposed to other social platforms.

Reporting and monitoring

Using data to draw up periodic reports is an excellent way to monitor progress over time. In the case of elements of digital marketing strategy that require longer periods to show results (such as SEO), you will be able to not only monitor this but look back at what has or hasn’t worked previously and implement or avoid it. It’s also an excellent way to look back on your progress and acknowledge where you have grown. After all, every victory as a small business is worth celebrating.

The importance of having well thought out strategy is not to be understated. But, linking this strategy to objectives that can be measured is where the value of effective social media for small businesses is truly realised. Simply put, the use of measurable KPI’s serves as the GPS on your journey towards your business goals. Thus, helping you identify blocked roads, where there is traffic and which highway represents the best path. All whilst letting you know just far you have left to travel.

For advice on how to set measurable KPI’s, link them to your objectives and for bespoke digital marketing strategy, get in touch with us. We’d love to set you on the path to success!