Social media is a powerful channel for communicating your key messages to your target audience. But how do you know if your messages are resonating, reaching, and influencing them? Measuring the effectiveness of your key messages on social media requires a strategic approach that combines qualitative and quantitative methods. Here are some steps to help you do that.
Before you start measuring anything, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your key messages on social media. What are your communication goals and objectives? How do they align with your overall business or organizational goals? How do they relate to your audience's needs, preferences, and behaviors? Having SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals and objectives will help you set the direction and scope of your measurement plan.
One thing I've found essential in measuring the effectiveness of key messages on social media is to clearly define goals and objectives. Whether aiming for increased brand awareness, customer engagement, or driving sales, your goals should guide your measurement strategies. For example, tracking specific metrics like engagement rates, reach, and conversion rates directly aligns with these objectives. By setting clear, measurable targets, you can effectively assess the impact of your messages and adjust strategies for optimal performance.
Formulating campaigns that have a wrapped round approach is a smart way to think when running social media. The occasional awareness post works well, but think about how you can elongate campaigns across months and weeks. Think 'nudge-nurture' - tell a story of the industry problems and solutions. Position your thought-leaders at the head of your brand and leave products to the bottom of the pile. Make people engage with people.
Next, you need to identify what are your key messages and how will you measure them. Your key messages are the main points that you want to convey to your audience through your social media content. They should be consistent, concise, and compelling. They should also support your goals and objectives and match your audience's interests and values. To measure your key messages, you need to select indicators that reflect how well they are delivered and received. Indicators are metrics or criteria that help you assess the performance and impact of your key messages. They can be qualitative or quantitative, depending on your goals and objectives. For example, some common indicators for social media are reach, engagement, sentiment, awareness, recall, and conversion.
Once you have your key messages and indicators, you need to choose the tools and methods that will help you collect and analyze the data. There are many tools and methods available for measuring social media, ranging from free to paid, from simple to complex, from manual to automated. Some examples are social media analytics platforms, media monitoring services, surveys, interviews, focus groups, and sentiment analysis. The choice of tools and methods depends on your budget, resources, time, and skills. You should also consider the reliability, validity, and accuracy of the tools and methods you use.
The next step is to collect and analyze the data according to your measurement plan. You should collect the data regularly and systematically, following the indicators and tools and methods you have selected. You should also analyze the data critically and objectively, looking for patterns, trends, insights, and gaps. You should compare the data with your goals and objectives, as well as with benchmarks and best practices. You should also look for feedback, comments, and opinions from your audience that can help you understand their perceptions and reactions to your key messages.
The final step is to report and act on the results of your measurement. You should communicate the results to your stakeholders, such as your team, your management, your clients, or your partners. You should use clear and concise language, visuals, and stories to highlight the key findings, achievements, challenges, and recommendations. You should also use the results to improve your key messages and your social media strategy. You should identify what worked well and what didn't, what needs to be changed or improved, and what are the next steps or actions to take.
Know your industry benchmarks. A 0.5% click through rate might sound good to you, but your company stakeholders or clients may look at that figure as absurdly low, generally speaking. Provide context and detail wherever possible when reporting back. If something worked well, it may not be easy to fully ascertain why - offer potential solutions - same if things didn't work well.
Key messages on social are often defined by what you've uncovered from your audience. In other words, does your message resonate with them at all? So many brands fall foul of regurgitating the same corporate messaging over and over again - talking about values and sustainability - problem is, so is everyone else. Your audience is not always coming onto social to find YOU. They may just be browsing their feeds, seeing what's going on with their colleagues past and present - what do you know about their problems and how do you position your visual and copy to resonate as quickly as possible? You have seconds to get and keep their attention. Talk problems, not products and brand names.