The unhinged social media manager trend is thankfully behind us. Now it\u2019s time to recognize social as a serious driver of growth and revenue. Welcome to the era of social media performance.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n Bonus<\/strong>: Download a free guide and checklist<\/span>\u00a0to help you convince your boss to invest more in social media. Includes experts tips for proving ROI.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Performance marketing is a modern approach to marketing that focuses on driving growth and revenue.<\/p>\n Traditional marketing goals can be somewhat vague. Think about a concept like brand awareness. Yes, it\u2019s important for people to be aware of your brand. But it\u2019s hard to link that level of awareness to your brand\u2019s specific growth and revenue targets.<\/p>\n Because of that disconnect, marketing is generally seen as a cost center for the business. It\u2019s something you have to spend money on, whether you want to or not\u00a0\u2014 and you might not be able to tie that spend to real returns.<\/p>\n Performance marketing turns that approach on its head. Rather than a cost center, marketing becomes a high-ROI profit center.<\/strong> It supports real business goals like increasing sales and leads while lowering customer acquisition costs.<\/p>\n Modern marketing tools offer refined tracking, analysis, research, and attribution reporting tools. That data makes the marketing department a goldmine of actionable insights. The results can increase performance across the company.<\/p>\n Social media is often seen as a driver of \u201cvanity metrics.\u201d After all, the easiest results to see are things such as likes, comments, and shares. You can track these just by looking at your social accounts.<\/p>\n And, of course, those metrics have some business value \u2014 but it\u2019s not directly tangible value. It\u2019s impossible to say, for instance, that a like equates to a specific dollar value of ROI.<\/p>\n However, social media absolutely can provide tangible, measurable, concrete business value.<\/strong> But only if you apply performance marketing tactics and best practices to your social media efforts.<\/p>\n In fact, social media marketers have<\/em> to<\/em> become more performance-focused \u2013 and fast. Otherwise, they might see their budgets shrinking.<\/p>\n In 2024, marketing budgets are on a downward trend globally:<\/p>\n Source: <\/em>2024 Gartner CMO Spend Survey<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n As budgets tighten, every dollar counts.<\/p>\n The industry is evolving. Social marketers who embrace the shift to a performance-based model earn a seat at the table for business and budget conversations.<\/strong> This creates new opportunities for career growth and development while supporting the success of your brand.<\/p>\n Here are 7 top strategies for making sure that your social channels contribute to the financial success of your business.<\/p>\n Gone are the days of setting social marketing goals<\/a> in isolation. No longer a novelty, social media has matured into a critical pillar of marketing and communications.<\/p>\n With increased recognition comes increased responsibility to show value.<\/strong> It\u2019s not about how much work you\u2019re doing, or even what results you\u2019re getting. It\u2019s about how those results align with \u2013 and support \u2013 business objectives.<\/p>\n For example, emerging brands might aim for pure business growth. More mature brands might narrow the focus to profitable <\/em>growth. Such distinctions will appear in the organization\u2019s goal framework.<\/p>\n Social goals need to align with that framework. So, there\u2019s work to do before you begin developing goals for the social marketing team. You need to unpack the organization\u2019s KPIs (key performance indicators) and\/or OKRs (objective key results).<\/p>\n If you\u2019re not sure what your organizational goal framework is, your CMO or marketing manager will know.<\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve done that research, dive into our blog posts on how to set social media goals<\/a> and design meaningful KPIs<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remember, though, that marketing moves fast, and goals cannot be set in stone. You\u2019ll need to check in with your wider team (at least) quarterly. This will allow you to adjust your plans as business needs and social strategies change.<\/p>\n Next, you need to set up a system to track your data and analyze social media performance. A social media tool like Hootsuite<\/a> allows you to choose the metrics that matter most<\/a>. Then, you\u2019ll set up custom reports complete with easy-to-share charts and graphs.<\/p>\n When thinking about how to measure social media marketing performance, you need to focus on the key metrics that align to your business objectives. These will vary based on the goals you set in the last section.<\/p>\n In general, the most relevant metrics for proving social media performance relate to sales, leads, and customers:<\/p>\n Social listening is an endless source of customer and industry insights. That information has significant value for the social team \u2013 and for the organization as a whole. For example, with insights gained from social listening,<\/a> you can:<\/p>\n Intelligence from social listening impacts just about every value-generating department in the organization.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no better source of real-time audience data than social media. Social media audience demographics provide extensive insights, such as:<\/p>\n Combine this with the data gathered from social listening. Use results to create customer personas.<\/a> This will improve targeting efforts throughout the marketing team.<\/p>\n Conversion rate is a relatively simple calculation. It measures how many people buy (or subscribe) after clicking on a social link.<\/p>\n Attribution models take this concept a step further. They recognize that the customer journey is not as simple as one click, one conversion. Instead, you develop a relationship with a customer over time. This eventually leads to a sale. There may be plenty of social media posts seen, blog posts read, and shopping carts abandoned in the process.<\/p>\n Attribution tools like Google Analytics<\/a> connect to your social media dashboard. This helps track how social drives conversions across the sales funnel.<\/p>\n Social is often seen as a top-of-funnel<\/a> channel. This can be the hardest stage of the conversion journey to track. Proper attribution models ensure that you get a full picture of the customer journey, from engagement on social media to making a purchase. <\/strong><\/p>\n To get this set up, you may need help from other people in your business. Depending on your organization\u2019s structure, try talking to analysts, marketing ops, growth managers, or external agencies. These conversations provide a prime opportunity to make sure other teams understand both your existing contribution to the organization and your commitment to a performance-based model.<\/p>\n So you\u2019ve set your tools up to analyze social media performance. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation. Your social media performance report is only as useful as the work you put into using it.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll soon become familiar with the trends in your key performance indicators, social media metrics, and audience data. You\u2019ll start to get a sense of the best cadence for check-ins and analysis. What do you need to look at daily? Weekly? Monthly? Quarterly?<\/p>\n What kind of changes need immediate action?<\/p>\n Develop a plan to respond to changes in your metrics. Use a schedule that maximizes your ability to refine strategy while minimizing time spent looking at reports.<\/p>\n This is all about understanding how you can actually use the data for real strategic change. If it\u2019s something you can change daily, check it daily. Think of post level metrics like engagement rate and click-through rate.<\/p>\nWhat is performance marketing?<\/span><\/h2>\n
Is social media a performance marketing channel?<\/span><\/h2>\n
![\"Gartner](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/social-media-performance-1-620x348.png?resize=620%2C348&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nHow to turn social media into a performance marketing channel<\/span><\/h2>\n
1. Align social goals with business-wide objectives<\/span><\/h3>\n
2. Set up smart data tracking<\/span><\/h3>\n
Track social media metrics<\/h4>\n
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Set up social listening<\/h4>\n
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Clarify audience demographics<\/h4>\n
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![\"Hootsuite](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.hootsuite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/social-media-performance-3-620x288.png?resize=620%2C288&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/figure>\nSet up attribution models<\/h4>\n
3. Unpack your results<\/span><\/h3>\n
Check your dashboards regularly<\/h4>\n