Track Your Results

Track Your Results

Your social media strategy is almost complete. You just need to do this one last step. While this is the easiest of all the steps, if not done, it can make or break your success.

If you don’t track your results, you won’t be able to see what is working and what isn’t. Knowing this information can help you improve your strategy to see even better results.

Using a spreadsheet, record all your shares. This allows you to see which posts are attracting the most clicks and engagements, and which ones aren’t.

Knowing this information will help you learn how to write descriptions that will get the most attention.

The easiest way to get these stats is by signing up at Buffer. The site tracks your clicks, shares, and impressions and delivers them in an easy to understand format.

Continue to look at these numbers to see if they are slowly going up if they aren't then you'll have to rethink your strategy.

To ensure that you are effectively pushing traffic to your site, you’ll also want to use Google Analytics. Start by looking at the overall traffic. This will show you how much traffic you are getting from each network.

If the data presented isn't showing your traffic increases over time, you'll need to figure out why. Additionally, by adding the secondary dimension of "referral path," the information will show you where your traffic is coming from.

Some of the networks will allow you to see precisely what post sent the traffic to your website. Unfortunately, there are some, most notably Twitter, that will only provide you with a jumbled-up referral list that isn’t very useful.

As you continue to implement your strategy and track the results, you'll want to start studying the specific posts that gave you the most traffic.

Focus on those posts that you shared that weren't yours. Start building relationships with these individuals to increase your chances of getting significant recurring traffic.

This may seem like a ton of work, and it is. But if you want to get serious about driving traffic to your site, your social media strategy is crucial.

A solid social media strategy isn’t for the light of heart. It will take time for you to build your first plan and execute it successfully, but your efforts will be well worth it when you start seeing the results of your efforts in increased traffic.