It’s easy to hop on the social media bandwagon. After all, the major networks are free to use and “everyone else is doing it”. All it takes is time, right? “It’s easy.” “Anyone can do it.” The excitement to jump right in often comes before the strategy and well before setting goals. This approach is the slow path to wasting time and money as well as losing buy-in from the C-suite.

With that in mind, the major considerations often become setting out to meet measurable key performance indicators that have value, but those KPIs may not ultimately be tied to your firm’s goals. Yes, more followers may lead to brand awareness. More social shares may show an increase in thought leadership and authority within the industry. Does this mean the program is successful? It may show progress, but it does not necessarily impact the bottom line.

Jumping in without a true strategy can do more harm than good. The successes of others in the social media universe do not translate to success for professional services firms. The objectives may be similar, but the goals may be very different. Tweeting is a tactic, gaining more followers is an objective, but how do we measure success? Determining how to measure success in social media marketing ties back to the ultimate goal of driving new business.

Now we are getting somewhere and can define how to measure the positive impact of social media marketing back to ROI – the ultimate goal. First we must define our goals. Keep them simple, quantifiable, and tangible.

Here are three goals to track progress and success:

  1. Generate enough conversion that will prove social media is a viable lead generation source. This may include driving qualified traffic to your website and showing that those visitors take an action. The goal could be showing that visitors complete a contact us form, download a valuable piece of content, or register for a webinar.
  2. Position your firm as the number one resource for services and thought leadership within your industry. Although this may seem more qualitative than quantitative, a firm can measure its position against competitors. Awareness can be a goal if it is measured in relation to your firm’s competitors. Being the top website for relevant Google searches is an example.
  3. Now put a number on it. Determine what you want and when you want it. This may be in the form of new clients. The goal can be to secure X number of clients by a certain time next year.

Now we know what we want to measure. Let’s determine how we will measure this social media success. Putting new followers, more shares and comments on posts aside, we can determine the tools and methods we will use to get there.

Here are ways to show your firm that it has met each goal:

  1. Conversion – Use custom landing pages and web analytics to know where your qualified traffic is coming from and what actions these visitors are taking. If you have an upcoming webinar, create landing pages dedicated to each social network and use Google Analytics to determine if that traffic is registering for the event. You can now measure: inbound traffic from a particular social network, event registrations, and the ratio of visitors to registrants. If you have a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software tied to your firm’s site, you can see who has registered and your business development team can follow up on those warm leads before it is too late.
  2. Thought Leadership – This is one of the most overused phrases in social media marketing, but it is tangible. You can use manual searches, workflow tools like HootSuite, and sophisticated software like Radian6 or Sysomos to measure share of voice and sentiment. Share of voice is simply how often your brand is mentioned online in relation to your competitors. If you dominate the social media conversation, then you should see that traffic and conversion you are looking for and have an understanding of where your firm is positioned within your industry. Sentiment is harder to measure, but with tools, searches and effort, you can determine if the conversation around your firm is positive, neutral or (hopefully not) negative.
  3. New Business – In addition to measuring qualified traffic and the actions that visitors take, your firm should use a CRM tool to capture those leads to show that social media can drive sales. Like a tree falling in the woods, if you can’t track a lead and follow up, then does it really exist? Your firm should set a goal of X new clients by QY. Hit it and your social media marketing program will continue to receive a budget and will be seen as a primary lead generation resource.

These are the core components for measuring social media success for professional services firms, but that does not mean you should not quantify and report on followers, likes, shares, mentions, comments and the rest. These concepts should still be measured, but just be prepared for the C-level executives to ask what that progress means to your firm.

On Twitter or Facebook? Follow us @HingeMarketing and join us on Facebook. To learn more about the strategies and tactics to meet your social media marketing goals, download a free copy of The Social Media Guide for Processional Services.