Measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing remains an ongoing challenge for many organizations.

Accurate measurement is crucial to determine how much to invest in social media and/or content marketing – and to assess which campaigns perform best. Yet companies and nonprofits both find that selecting the right metrics, gauging the value of social media, and connecting social media campaigns to essential business objectives can be difficult.

Digital marketing experts say that these are the most common social media measurement pitfalls:

Tracking too many metrics. Some businesses track metrics just because they can, prompting a deluge of often unused data. Measuring a handful of valuable metrics rigorously will reveal developing trends, says Jay Baer, founder of Convince & Convert.

Ignoring business goals. Watching reach and engagement is fine, but connecting social media marketing efforts to key business objectives, such as lead generation and sales, is what reveals the concrete value.

Not preparing reports well. Marketers typically share social media metrics reports with others in their organizations. The ideal reports are quickly and easily understood by others in the organizations. Baer calls it merchandizing – like the products that retailers place on window displays. If the key results can’t fit on one piece of paper, you’re either measuring too many things or not merchandising the results properly.

Not comparing channels. Measuring and evaluating metrics from different social media networks side-by-side brings clarity to your social media reports.

Not calculating (true) costs. To determine your approximate costs per month and per channel follow this formula: Add salaries and benefits of all team members plus software, agency fees and other outside costs. Divide by 12 for monthly costs, and then determine the percentage of time dedicated to each network.

“If you’re going to invest in social media, take the time to do social media reporting well,” Baer advises. “It will make you better at social, and will help garner appropriate support for your efforts internally.”

Ignoring share of traffic. Comparing social media traffic to other marketing channels such as search or display ads helps determine its value. Social networks probably won’t generate as much traffic or as many leads as search engines or pay-per-click keyword advertising, but should drive more than email or display ads. If it doesn’t, marketers may wish to delay reporting that data to management until they improve their campaigns, advises Hootsuite.

Overestimating the importance of followers. Many followers are likely bots or spam accounts. Many may be real people who don’t care about your brand. Anyone can easily click a “follow” or “like” button. “It’s far better to have a smaller number of followers who genuinely like and engage with your brand than a large number of followers who don’t,” says Jayson DeMers, founder and CEO of AudienceBloom, in a Huffington Post article.

Overestimating the importance of web traffic. A social media post may attract many visitors to your website, but many of those visitors probably leave within seconds.  Some may even leave with a negative view of your brand. Measuring time on content can provide better insight into the extent of engagement.

Accepting shares at face value. While generally beneficial, shares are not as useful as links. Links increase your site’s authority and typically generate greater referral traffic over time than shares. In addition, many shares are prompted by bots.

Being overly impressed with impressions. The typical impressions data reports on potential impressions, not actual impressions.  It’s therefore not a reliable data point. The number of click-throughs combined with time on content provides a better view of reach and impact.

Misunderstanding mentions. Not all brand mentions are positive. At least some are negative. It’s crucial to employ a social media listening service with sentiment analysis to determine if mentions are positive, negative or neutral and grade mentions for overall sentiment. The best sentiment analysis systems combine automated software analysis with human analysis.

Bottom Line: Although most brands embrace social media, measuring the effectiveness of their social media marketing efforts remains challenging. Avoiding these common mistakes can help marketers better measure and improve their social media campaigns.

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William Comcowich

William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.