Social media management is a challenging and rewarding career, but sometimes it can be hard to prove your worth to your boss or clients. How do you show the impact of your work on the brand's goals, reputation, and revenue? In this article, we'll share some tips and tools to help you measure and communicate your value as a social media manager.
Before you start tracking and reporting your results, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your social media strategy. What are the specific and measurable goals that align with the brand's vision and mission? For example, do you want to increase awareness, engagement, leads, sales, loyalty, or advocacy? How do you define success for each of these outcomes? Having SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) objectives will help you focus your efforts and evaluate your performance.
So, a lot of what I usually see on these threads often relates to metrics, KPI's, communication and engagement but one thing that I have found helpful with working in the "digiverse" is having a unique way of curating, reporting, and presenting data. Usually, white-label solutions don't cater to the specific needs of individual businesses but rather apply to a wide range of operations and only report on top-line metrics. In my short working history, I have always strived to create unique reports, dashboards, and templates that specifically speak to the needs of the business. They may seem like obsolete documents but realistically, they serve a much higher function as "intellectual property' that the company uses for their needs.
It’s not about metrics, impressions, or likes; it’s about genuine engagement. A social media manager’s value is not in the volume but in the depth. It’s about crafting compelling narratives that resonate with your audience. In a world of superficial scrolling, your work should make people pause, think, or smile. It should spark conversations, forge connections, and build a tribe around your brand. Value lies in understanding the hearts and minds of your audience. It’s about being the digital anthropologist, diving deep into the psyche of your followers, and curating content that addresses their real needs and desires.
It's crucial to have a clear objective when using social media. Without one, all your efforts to grow on these platforms can go to waste. So, make sure you align your actions on social media with a specific goal to avoid wasting your time, energy, and effort. Tracking anything randomly will not work, but tracking numbers according to your objective will give you great insight. Brands and creators use social media to achieve various objectives, which may evolve. It can evolve with time, with certain platform updates, achieving some other objectives, and for trials and tests.
One thing i have found helpful in showing value of social media work is by setting KPI's and tracking trough analytics and reporting to find out if you are really reaching your goals.
Clearly defined objectives are the backbone of successful social media management. But defining objectives doesn't just mean setting targets; it involves a deeper understanding of your brand's overall vision and how social media plays a part in achieving that. It's crucial to note that objectives can evolve. Periodic reviews ensure they remain in sync with broader business goals, market changes, or platform-specific trends. Also, ensure that each objective is prioritized. While all goals are important, understanding which ones are most critical at a given time ensures that efforts are channeled appropriately.
Once you have your objectives, you need to choose the right metrics to measure them. Metrics are the quantitative indicators that show how well you are meeting your goals. For example, if your objective is to increase awareness, you might use metrics like reach, impressions, followers, or mentions. If your objective is to increase engagement, you might use metrics like likes, comments, shares, clicks, or video views. If your objective is to increase leads or sales, you might use metrics like conversions, revenue, cost per lead, or return on ad spend. There are many tools and platforms that can help you collect and analyze these metrics, such as Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, or Sprout Social.
Choosing the right metrics is pivotal. Align them with your objectives, ensure they are quantifiable and accessible, and prioritize actionable insights. Take into account your audience's behavior and competitive benchmarks. Continuously evaluate and adjust your chosen metrics to maintain a clear path to social media success.
Many people also often forget about the outtakes. The stuff along the way that helps ladder up to those harder metrics you’re trying to reach. For example, has your influencer campaign also increased branded search? Has your social campaign also earned media from a PR coverage perspective? It’s in the little wins too ??
In addition to picking the right metrics, make sure to represent your growth in a way that looks compelling. This may seem silly, but it does work. Ex. 2x seems more impressive than saying doubled or 100%. Ex. If you have a lot of followers, a 5% growth is great but doesn't seem like a lot. Saying 30K follower growth may be more impressive looking.
Once you have completed the process of goal or objective setting of your social media profile, you should start looking for the option of how you will measure the results. Now you need to choose the matrices which is aligned with the objective which you have chosen. Each objective has different measurable matrices. Also, to improve your matrices and results. You should try and test new strategies, content, and trends, with the right target audience. As soon as you start observing the numbers in the right way, your future moves will enhance those numbers automatically.
The key to 'choosing your metrics' is being able to explain why you consider specific metrics important in relation to your goals. Follower counts and conversions have clear logical connections to the goals of brand awareness and lead generation respectively, but for organic social media metrics, engagement is often considered the most important metric because it's an indication of how involved your followers are in your content--this, in turn, is an indication of if you're making interesting content, and if you're building a community.
Now that you have your metrics, you need to create your reports to show your results. Reports are the documents or presentations that summarize and visualize your data and insights. They help you tell a story about your social media performance and highlight your achievements and challenges. You should tailor your reports to your audience and purpose. For example, if you are reporting to your boss or client, you might want to focus on the metrics that matter most to them, such as revenue, ROI, or customer satisfaction. If you are reporting to your team or peers, you might want to share more details and learnings, such as best practices, trends, or recommendations. You should also use charts, graphs, or dashboards to make your reports more appealing and easy to understand.
The presence of external factors makes social media a realm of uncertainties, rendering it challenging to attribute success. Personally, I find reports that incorporate a strategic timeline quite valuable. When examining data holistically, this timeline simplifies the process of attributing success.
I personally love reports and use them not even on a monthly basis... but they are my north start every single day. Without having measurability at hand, it's hard to understand what's happening in real time. Social media is a game of timing and adaptability, therefore understanding both the business side of things as well as what your audience is looking for, is crucial for social media managers to drive results
Reports. Love to hate them and hate to love them, but reports are a must have. Monthly reports can show management or client how effective your content strategy is. reports also help you identify trends, see what is working, when and how and allow you to make strategies decisions or changes on the strategy. Without reports is like driving blind… leading to a crash.
I have had great success with A/B Testing and Optimization. Continuously optimize social media strategies based on A/B testing and data analysis, which leads to improved performance over time. Staying informed about the latest trends and best practices in social media marketing, showing your commitment to improvement. By consistently demonstrating the impact of your social media efforts in terms of ROI, and alignment with business goals, you can effectively show the value of your work as a social media manager. This helps in justifying your role, and gaining support from senior management and stakeholders.
Finally, you need to communicate your value to your stakeholders and show them how your work contributes to the brand's success. You can do this by using data and stories to demonstrate your impact and influence. For example, you can show how your social media campaigns increased brand awareness, generated leads, or boosted sales. You can also share how your social media content improved brand reputation, customer loyalty, or advocacy. You can also showcase how your social media skills and knowledge helped you solve problems, innovate, or collaborate. By communicating your value, you can build trust, credibility, and recognition as a social media manager.
When you're communicating your value, consider these tactics: -Use numbers instead of writing it out (ex. 2,000 looks more impressive than two thousand) -Consider what looks more impressive (ex. 2x more looks more impressive than 100% more because people often misinterpret percentages) -Add qualitative comments as well to give your value a human element (ex. I increased engagement by 2x, and as @UserName shared "this account has gotten so much better, I love your Instagram")
Not only should you carefully think which metrics to share, but everything is not all about vanity metrics. The quality of the comments you get will be a great indicator of HOW you interact with your audience. Show that you get your target and you know how to address them. Quantity & Quality !
This is the most important part: be an advocate for yourself. If you are not constantly proving your worth, showing your growth, and letting your managers know how you are helping your brand, you don't have a chance to show your value. It might feel weird at first, but it is necessary to grow, get promotions, and take the next career step.
Altought you are looking to communicate your own value, keep the focus on the steakholder. How is having 2,000 more impressions benefitting them or the business? E.g. "Impressions have gone up by 2,000 resulting in X engagements. This means your target audience is noticing you" - keeping the focus on YOU rather than I
What’s important with communicating about the value you’ve created, is knowing very well whom you going to report to. Internal stakeholders in your organisation might have different needs when it comes down to understand the value of your work. So make sure you understand what they want to know about your social media efforts. For example, your direct manager might have very different reporting needs than business executives. They need other metrics to understand the return of investment on social media and therefore one size fits all reporting won’t be successful if you want to really show and make your impact understand by others. So understand first your internal stakeholders and adapt your reporting to it.
While a lot of social media managers already wear many hats, it's a smart move to demonstrate your value by continuing to expand your skill set. Learning some graphic design and video editing can make all the difference--picking up useful pieces along the way shows you're a creative, engaged, and smart employee (or freelancer!).
Social media managers substantiate their value by diligently monitoring and presenting Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), ensuring the alignment of strategies with overarching business goals, curating compelling content, conducting competitive analysis, showcasing comprehensive case studies, optimizing campaigns through A/B testing, and leveraging data-driven analytics. Furthermore, they enhance transparency and internal recognition through educational initiatives. These endeavors underscore their capacity to drive engagement, growth, website traffic, and Return on Investment (ROI), thus underscoring their strategic prowess and industry leadership.
To conclude it here, social media managers also need to showcase their innovation and creativity because innovation and creativity are very crucial aspects to growth on any social media platform.
Il ne faut pas perdre de vue l’instantanéité des réseaux sociaux, de mon point de vue les experts de réseaux sociaux sont avant tout des observateurs de la société. Montrer sa valeur c’est montrer que l’on cerne les tendances, ce qui touche les gens à l’instant T, bref être connecté aux autres. Dans mes reportings j’aime aller au delà des simples concurrents et voir les ??conversations qui ont de la valeur??, que je trouve pour ma part dans l’exceptionnelle sphère artistique. C’est comme dans la vie une seule rencontre peut éclairer votre vie, et surtout on est sur les réseaux pour des ??good vibes only??, ressortons le leitmotiv 60’s : think pink!
Lastly, but most importantly, ground your creativity on 3 key pillars: - Analysis; - Hypothesis; - Testing; Every single post should be ideated following this process (and NOT on what looks cool or on what is opinable for others), as social media is a game of constant communicative innovation.