Social status: 4 key indicators of social media success

So you’ve created social media accounts and have come up with a solid content strategy – but now what? As with any strategy, you need to have an endgame. What do you ultimately want to achieve through your social media presence?

For businesses that are just starting to explore social media (or for those who’ve been at it for a while with little results), creating impactful goals is not exactly straightforward. Many businesses tend to focus on vanity metrics (such as follower count) to measure their social achievement – but true social media success is more complex than simply racking up followers.

To get a better idea of what strong social media goals really look like, check out our list below.

4 signs of social media success:

1. Gaining the right kind of followers – While an ever-increasing follower count is a sign that you’re headed in the right direction, those followers should ideally belong to your target audience. Target audience members are much more likely to convert, or complete actions that align with your content marketing objectives (more on that later). Basically, if your follower count mainly consists of a bunch of spambots, chances of conversion are slim to none.

2. Boosting engagement – Once you start gaining the right kind of followers, the next hurdle is to engage them. You know you’re making an impact once you start getting retweets, replies, likes and shares. Getting noticed in the congested world of social media can be challenging – but increased levels of engagement indicate that you’re on the right track.

3. Driving traffic to your website – If you’re like most businesses, you’re probably using social media in the hopes of bringing traffic back to your website. The content you send out on social should be interesting and topical enough for followers to want to learn more about your brand, thus leading them to your site.

4. Converting audience members – What are you asking your social media audience to do? Whether you’re looking for followers to purchase a product, download a white paper, register for an event or watch a video, it’s important to measure how many of your followers are answering your call to action.

 

While every business certainly wants to get the most out of their social media presence, it can be difficult to figure out what success really looks like online. If you want to be sure that your efforts are making an impact, these four signs of social media success will help to illuminate your digital strategy’s ROI.