This is a great article we found at  http://ezinearticles.com/?Improving-Social-Media-ROI-the-Easy-Way&id=7810932 As social media managers, one thing we get asked all the time is “How do you get a ROI with social media” here are a few great ways to monitor your ROI. One thing to remember is if you are spending time or money on managing social media, it is not a dollar to dollar return, you want to monitor your interaction, your likes, comments, new likes, followers, Re-Tweets etc. Please let us know if you have any questions with getting an ROI with social media, we would love to speak with you.

Chances are you are either one of the two kinds of people:

1. Somebody who definitely no idea what social media ROI is or

2. Somebody who knows it is but has trouble giving an exact number.

Fret not my friends. Around 1/4 of the marketers we have worldwide realize that finding their social media ROI is one of the biggest challenge they face as marketers.

To further help you, I will list down some techniques you can implement on your social media campaigns so you can easily reach your ROI.

#1 Promote offers using social networking sites – We all know and recognize the power of social media. It is a very important channel to promote anything one creates. It can be a white paper, a report, an eBook a simple article or even a webinar. Promoting your products or offer using social networking sites is not as tough as you think. Fun in fact!

 

  • Twitter

 

Twitter marketing is quite easy as you just need to put a link that includes your content/product/offer. Also, don’t forget to use #hashtags. Tweets with words that are hashed are more valuable that tweets that are not. Once you hashtag a word, it goes to the world of hashtags. Your tweets will become more visible to your followers. But there’s a rule. I recommend using only 2-3 hashed words per tweet. Using too much will make you look like spam.

 

  • Facebook and Google +

 

People are visual when it comes to Facebook and Google+. Take advantage of this behavior by using pictures on your post with your link. And like Twitter, these two social networking sites have adopted the #hashtag, so make sure take advantage of this new feature also for maximum visibility.

 

  • LinkedIn

 

Post on marketing groups that are discussing principles or ideas that are same as yours.

#2 Use tags on URLs to track traffic – To further understand social media ROI you have to know where people are coming from when they get to your site. If you are promoting your work on multiple platforms, you have to know what campaign works and what is failing. This will make future campaigns easier. In order to successfully track traffic, you have to put tags on URLs so you know if it comes from a specific platform. Remember that the whole idea behind this technique is finding campaigns that work and find out those that needs to be tweaked.

Surveys – You can also use a tried and tested method of knowing how your visitors get to your site is through the use of a simple survey. If you thought that surveys are a thing of the past then you are gravely mistaken.

#3 Take advantage of Google+ – I asked some friends the other day as to what they think the best social media platform for Google is and I got varied answers. I really can’t blame them because most of them had no idea what I was asking. As for internet marketers, Google+ is hands-down the best SEO partner you can have for your campaigns.

Other than Google+, make sure to make your presence felt using Google Places and Google Authorship. The overall idea of a social media campaign is for more traffic to your site so this means that a good presence on all Google platforms might just equate to more traffic for your site.

Bottom line, use the best social media practices to improve your ROI.

You may be into Twitter marketing or Pinterest or Facebook but you always have to remember that social media marketing is not a magic cure that will surely remedy your problems in no time at all.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7810932