If you were in an elevator and had just 20-seconds to explain the effectiveness of your social media plan, what would you say? Like most Middle Market CEOs, you are likely more comfortable dealing with boards and balance sheets than Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn!

To measure the success of your social media plan, the first question you should be asking is, “What’s the strategy?” followed closely by the cost and projected ROI. In larger enterprises, social media spending can represent a hefty percentage of a marketing budget, so it’s to your advantage to find out whether money being spent is spent wisely.

But just like your company business plan, you have to have measurable tools in place prior to a social media launch. Depending on the extent of your marketing efforts, having a plan in place is mandatory, especially as you delve deeper into the murky world of social media, where you’ll find multiple avenues to market your brand from social networks to mobile websites, to apps, and online advertising. Each can be expensive, and each can impact your bottom line – and there are a lot of people who want to sell you something social!

Aside from the budget, here are more reasons why you should be monitoring your social media: According to Marketo in its “Definitive Guide to Social Marketing,” in Social Media Examiner’s “2012 Social Marketing Industry Report”, among Social Marketers today:

  • 93% use some form of Social Media,
  • 85% reported the key benefit is generating new business,
  • 76% plan on increasing their use of Video Marketing, and
  • 74% reported that Social Media increased website traffic.

But how do you know if you social media program is successful? You may want to begin by exploring some of the following tools:

  1. Google Analytics: No surprise here, but the most widely used analytic tools are from Google. You can track user activity on your website (or product microsites) in real time and find out the number of visits on a daily basis. You can also find out how people got there, how long they stayed and see whether or not they became customers.
  2. Wildfire: Among the many social media companies, Wildfire (a recent Google acquisition), offers many paid monitoring tools. However, it does have a free social media monitor to help determine how your Facebook and Twitter campaigns measure up versus your competition. Use it.
  3. Klout, HootSuite and My Top Tweet: These paid and free programs help measure your social media success: Klout tells you who’ve influenced, how and where. HootSuite gives you a free way to manage your entire social media activity, and My Top Tweet ranks your top ten tweets and how many times they were re-tweeted.

It’s all about metric measurement with Social Media marketing. If your social media spend is generating leads and new customers, your Social Media Manager is doing exactly what the job requires. If you’re not getting the results you need, you may want to take a closer look at how you are managing your Social Media campaigns. You won’t be sorry you did.