How to Track Social Media Performance without Spending a Dime

(#ToolboxTuesday) When I’m not working at dlvr.it, you can find me coaching youth basketball. At the onset of every season, I create team goals and work with each player to create individual goals. This last season, my 5th grade boy’s team had the goal of playing in the championship game.

Based on past experience, I knew we had to hit our key game metrics in order to be in the championship game. It was not enough to say, “Have great defense” or “Be the best shooting team.” How do you measure that? We needed specific measurable steps that we could take to inch us closer to our goal. Below are what we tracked and the results from the season:

We started every practice reflecting on the previous game results and restated our goals. We constantly made adjustments where needed. For example, if shooting percentage was low, we focused practice on fundamentals of shooting. Because of our relentless focus on simple metrics, it was no surprise we exceeded 3 out of 4 goals on average per game, and won the championship game.

Throughout the season, we constantly measured and worked on the little things to help us improve and get us closer to our goal.

As in basketball, you can’t improve social media performance unless you have stated goals and a path to get there.

The 3-step Social Media Success Plan

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you know I like simple things. It’s no different when it comes to goals and metrics. If you are running a small business, you don’t have time to pour over pages of data. Focus on the fundamentals:

1. First, decide what your ultimate social media goal is (sales, grow, followers).
2. Next, list a few tangible and measurable steps that will have the greatest impact in helping you obtain your goal (write two unique blog posts per week).
3. Finally, create a game plan that will help you make-needed adjustments when you are not reaching your goals (focus blog content on what is working).

Take Control of Your Data

NOTE: In typical Toolbox Tuesday fashion, we recommend tools that help us be great at social media in less time. This is NOT a paid endorsement or affiliate link.

After going through the process of layering a number of tools together, I started using SumAll. It’s a simple tool to track social media performance. You can customize the data output based on your goals. Most importantly, the cost will not break the bank. They have a free plan and $9 per month premium plan. It is the perfect tool when you want a quick snapshot of your social media progress.

In one quick click, I select the unique data I want to see from each platform or compare Twitter to Facebook performance. For example, I can easily see the correlation between the number of Tweets and Favorites. This helps me quickly identify where I need to spend more time or adjust our social media strategy. SumAll has over 42 different services you can connect to.

Why we continue to use SumAll:

• Simple dashboard and navigation
• Discover relationships between all our social media accounts
• Select only the data that is important to reach our goals
• Receive daily digests of what is happening across our social media channels

Now it’s your turn. Try SumAll to customize your data to match your social media goals. It only takes seconds to get started.

Feature photo by: daveynin