According to e-Marketer, social media marketers struggle to consistently measure ROI. As a result, getting a fair budget often feels like trying to befriend a bear: exhausting, frustrating and will probably end with one of us playing dead.

We have to prove real ROI that’s aligned with the business goals and helps propel them forward. Otherwise, persuading the deciding parties (whether that’s a boss or a client) that social media efforts have a measurable impact on the business is extremely tough.

So how can we prove effectiveness? How can we measure the exact impact of our social media marketing efforts in terms of traffic and conversion? How can we move beyond metrics like reach, comments, likes and shares and toward the meatier side of the business that ultimately leads to sales?

The impossibly high value of an iron clad attribution strategy

Marketing attribution is the idea of tracking all our marketing efforts and measuring the results they create.

Under a hyper efficient marketing strategy, every social media post, eBook, blog post, video or demo is a part of a unified, larger strategy that helps reach specific goals. Each piece has a role to play and its performance is measured against that role.

Let’s say you created a Facebook ad whose sole role is to drive traffic to a specific landing page. Its success has to be measured against that goal and not against how many likes, comments or shares it gets. Next, imagine that the landing page’s purpose is to get people to sign up for a free webinar training next Tuesday. That’s the stat we track.

This level of precision makes it easy to see what’s working and make data driven adjustments accordingly. Instead of throwing content out there and hoping and praying something sticks, we can actively adjust our overall strategy based on incoming data.

Effective social media marketing is half art, half science. By getting the science part right, we can afford to be more creative within the framework and create more of the type of content our audience loves. And this neatly leads us back to UTM tracking.

What’s UTM tracking?

UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module. That explains it, right!? End of post.

Just kidding. An Urchin Tracking Module is a bit of code tacked on to the end of a URL that gives your analytics software some juicy details about the person that just used that URL. It looks a little something like this:

https://revive.social/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=holiday_promo

This piece of code tells us where the visitor came from and why. How do we know all this? By using UTM parameters like utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign. Let’s take a look at what these parameters are and what they do.

1. The source parameter

Want to know where your spanking new visitor just came from? Easy, UTM tracking can give you that. That’s what the source parameter tells you.

Let’s take this into the physical world and imagine that your visitor is actually a traveller that goes by the name of Evilio. (Yes. He’s probably a supervillain.)

Evilio just arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare airport. His plane came in from Atlanta. So, if we were using UTM tracking it would look like this: utm_source=Atlanta.

2. The medium parameter

This parameter paints the bigger picture by telling us how our visitor reached us.

Evilio could’ve used a lot of different ways to get to O’Hare. He could have come by bus, train, automobile, his own two feet or his designated supervillain-mobile. But he didn’t. He flew. So the medium parameter would be utm_medium=plane.

3. The campaign parameter

We know how our visitor got to us but we still don’t know why! This is the final piece of the puzzle.

Let’s say Evilio saw a giant billboard while walking around Atlanta with his pet platypus. He scanned the unique QR code and learned about a free training for using social media to find higher quality minions. This was all part of a marketing campaign called “find your match.”

So when we see utm_campain=find-your-match, we know exactly what drove him to us.

4. The two less known parameters

The source, medium and campaign parameters are the trio you’ll use almost every time because they tell you how and why. However, they are not the only ones. We’ve got two additional ones: the utm_content parameter and the utm_term parameter.

The content parameter is used to tell the difference between similar sounding posts while the term parameter is used to track paid keywords. Both are useful for tracking the success of your ads.

Understanding our visitors

UTM tracking helps us understand how and why people are getting to us. This allows us to measure the success of different channels against specific goals so we can consciously do more of what’s working and less of all that other stuff.

Ultimately, this means more traffic, higher conversions and more money in everyone’s pocket (and budget.)

Building better social media campaigns with UTM tracking

There are two main ways you can use UTM tracking to measure the success of your social media marketing campaigns. You can set it up through Google Analytics (or your analytics software of choice) or you can set it up through your social media management dashboard.

Not all social media dashboards offer this service but as marketers continue to jump on the data train, it’s becoming a fairly common feature. Buffer, MavSocial, Agorapulse and Hootsuite offer it as an option in certain plans.

Setting UTM tracking up through any of these services is pretty straight forward so for the sake of simplicity, we’ll focus on how to do it through Google Analytics.

Setting up UTM tracking through Google Analytics

The process I’m about to share assumes you’ve got an account. (If you don’t, head over here to set one up. Here’s the how-to if your site runs on WordPress.)

1. Go to the campaign URL builder and create your link

Head over to a tool called the campaign URL builder and use it to create the UTM tracking parameters. You’ve got to include a source but the rest of the parameters are optional.

To make the most of it, I’d suggest using at least the first three parameters: the source, medium and campaign.

Capital letters and spelling matter so make sure you use the same naming conventions every time!

2. Grab your link

Scroll to the bottom and grab your link with your shiny new UTM tracking parameters. The whole thing just takes a couple of seconds.

You can also convert the URL into a short link so it looks more approachable (and less like you threw in a bunch of marketing gobbledygook in there.)

3. Paste the link into your social media post

Now that your link has super-secret tracking abilities, use it in your social media marketing campaign and start measuring those results.

Using UTM tracking like a pro

Desperate to see how your brand new UTM powered link is performing?

1. Open your Google Analytics account.

2. Under Reports click on Acquisition and then select Campaigns.

3. Under Campaigns, you’ll find all the info about trackable URLs and gain access to a wealth of useful information.

4. Analyze the data! This is the most important step of the process and the reason we set everything up in the first place.

Use that data to inform your future strategy. Study the numbers, measure the success of your campaign and compare it to the rest of your efforts.

Some best practices to keep you in the winner’s seat

Now that you’ve set up UTM tracking codes, let’s take a look at how you can make the most of them!

1. Use a consistent naming convention for all your parameters

Decide on a naming convention for the different parameters and stick to it. If you are going to use the medium parameter “social-media” to track all traffic that comes through a social source don’t suddenly change it to “social.”

Stay consistent because every time you use a different term or spell it differently, it tracks separately making it harder to analyze patterns.

2. Track every campaign

To get the best benefits, this needs to be an all or nothing kind of measure. Start introducing UTM tracking to all your campaigns, whether they are through social media, email or giant billboards at the side of the highway.

This way you can quickly eliminate the deadweight efforts and use their budgets to focus on the tactics that are working.

3. Track both the general and the specific

You can use UTM tracking to measure all the traffic that comes to you from, say, Instagram or you can use it to measure the traffic (and subsequent conversions) going to a specific landing page from your pinned Tweet.

Both the general and granular insights can be extremely useful so measure both.

4. Shorten your codes

When you tack on three to five different parameters at the end of a URL, the whole thing starts looking awfully long and unsightly. Use the default Google shortener or a link shortener like Bitly to keep your URL looking sharp.

Embrace your best efforts (and forget the rest)

UTM tracking helps you discover what parts of your social media marketing strategy are really working and which elements are due an early retirement.

With countless articles telling us what to do and not do, it’s easy to get sucked into trying too many things at the same time just because our favorite influencer is doing it.

UTM tracking creates clarity and accountability by eliminating guess work. You’ll know exactly where your time and cash is going and why. It makes it easier to prove real social ROI instead of chasing vanity metrics like clicks, likes and comments.

By making UTM tracking an essential building block of your social media strategy, you’ll know who lands on your site, why, whether they converted and how to get more people like them there again. And that, to me, sounds like the social media marketing dream.

The post How to Use UTM Tracking to Make Your Next Social Media Campaign a Winner appeared first on Revive Social.

You are still putting in the work and crafting exceptional content. Yet despite your efforts, your organic reach is dropping steadily and your click through rate is following suit.

It’s not you. It’s the algorithm.

The average Facebook page saw organic reach drop by a whopping 52% in 2016. One study found that the average reach of a post by a branded Facebook page is just 2.6%.

(Charts by Visualizer Lite.)

Why is this happening?

Facebook has been tweaking its algorithm to show people info that’s relevant to them, focusing on updates from friends, family and pages they’ve specifically interacted with recently. And of course, paid ads. While this should make scrolling through the feed better for consumers, it poses a challenge for marketers.

And it’s not just Facebook. Instagram updated their algorithm last year. LinkedIn openly favors posts that get a lot of engagement. Even Twitter moved away from the chronological time line. All of this is designed to put the right content in front of the right people. So how do you make sure that content is yours?

Facebook video marketing tips

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what’s a video worth?

Video has an irresistible appeal

People love video. Need some proof?

• Video will make up 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021 (Cisco)
• Using video as part of your marketing strategy can double your conversion rate and increase the time users spend on your site by 105% (BrightCove)
• 43% of consumers actually want businesses to create more video content (HubSpot)

We love it in marketing campaigns, on landing pages and while browsing our favorite channels. Video is getting ready to rule social media land.

Growing your channels with video

When it comes down to it, there really isn’t an ideal, wave a wand and you are there type of way to grow your social media page.

Video works because it cuts through the noise and grabs our attention. We are attracted to fast moving shiny things. It’s biology. And once you’ve got the user’s attention, it’s time to follow the golden rule of social media:

Create irresistible content that answers a real question, solves a real problem and treats the viewer like an actual person.

So how do you get started?

1. Use what you’ve already got

Making your first couple of videos doesn’t have to be hard. Use your current assets to get some relevant video topics.

a) Your FAQ section

Customer questions are a gold mine. Use it. Go through the questions that get asked all the time, pick one and make a short video around it.

Why FAQ? Three things.

• Attention grabbing: You are answering something that actually matters to your audience. Something they’ve been searching for. The chances that it will grab their attention are pretty high.
• Establishes credibility: You are basically answering the question that has been on their mind for months. If you know what they are thinking, you probably know how to help, right? Instant credibility boost.
• It’s specific: Focusing on a single question lets people know what to expect. This makes them far more likely to slow down long enough for you to work your magic and convince them to stick around.

b) Blog teasers

You’ve got a great reserve of evergreen, high quality blog posts. It’s time to dust these babies off, dress them up and make them work for you again.

Create short social videos that tease the question the post answers. If your post offers “10 tips to solve problem x” then create a video that gives one tip and then tease the post in a corresponding social media post or the end credits.

This is a great way to bring older content out to play.

c) Share quick footage from your day

Consumers have more choice than ever before. They’ve got access to a huge online marketplace. This means they can be as picky as they want.

Use video to show off your personality and make a connection. Show them who you are and what your business stands for. This personal connection is crucial. So, use your phone camera to snap some behind the scenes footage and share it with your followers.

Here’s someone who does this well:

Gina shares a quick recording about a tool she just found. It’s short, informative and helps build that personal connection.

So turn that camera on yourself and share something: a tool, an idea, an update.

2. Tools you can use to craft compelling content

You know what to make. Now you need to find the best way to make it.

Making videos for social media doesn’t have to be hard. And it definitely doesn’t need to involve expensive equipment and tens of hours sunk into making it perfect.

Social media isn’t about perfection. It’s about connection.

It’s about reaching through that digital screen for some human on human interaction.

Let’s take a look at some tools you can use to make videos really quickly.

a) The easiest way to make a video

Previously known as ViewedIt, Vidyard’s GoVideo is a super useful free Chrome extension. You can do some serious magic with this thing.

How it works:

• Download the Chrome extension
• Use it to record your screen (and you can get your face in there as well)
• Share your video on social media straight away

GoVideo is quick and intuitive. Use it to make an explainer video or tease an exciting project you are working on.

b) Super simple (and suave) video makers

Animoto and Biteable *⃣I write for Biteable and I've used the software a lot more than Animoto. I'm a fan. You do you. Try both and see which one your prefer. I've read great things about Animoto and from the quick trial I did while writing this article, it does its thing pretty well. help you put together great marketing and social media videos by pulling together images, short videos, text and music.

What to use it for:

• Video infographics: Pull together some data your followers just have to know about and make a short infographic video.
• Raise awareness: Tell people a bit more about your business or share something they haven’t heard before. Both of these platforms let you add your own voice over. You can even use a posh accent.

The options are endless. Animator Anneke Camstra used Biteable videos to land clients on LinkedIn and grow her following. Jill Gaynor from City Girl Flowers used Animoto to start a YouTube channel and landed three corporate clients.

Both tools require almost no set up and no special skills. It took me less than 10 minutes to make my first video with Biteable.

c) Easy editing

One of the key Facebook video marketing tips is that shooting a video doesn’t have to be super involved. With some decent lighting, a solid webcam like the Logitech 920 and a good mic like the Blue Yeti you can make a quick video from your desk. The problem is what comes after.

Tools like Camtasia and iMovie have made editing a video much easier. Camtasia is an intuitive editing software perfect for beginners. You can upload a video or record your screen and then edit it. You can even add animation and effects.

3. Keep it platform specific

Crafting the right type of content for social media is a lot like picking out birthday gifts for your best friends. If you want oooohs and aaaahs you need to put in the work and get specific.

a) Winning with Facebook video

This might probably sound a bit obvious considering that we’re talking about Facebook video marketing tips, but Facebook really is king right now when it comes to video platforms.

Over 1.3 billion people log into Facebook every single day. No matter what you do, you can find an audience there and grow your following.

If you want to make a video that wows, follow these Facebook video marketing tips:

• Create an explosive, attention grabbing start and keep it short and snappy: A user decides whether to stick around within the first three seconds. Grab that attention and don’t let go.
• Include subtitles and minimize the need for text: 85% of Facebook videos are watched with the sound off. Make sure the viewer can enjoy your video fully with just the subtitles.
• Autoplay with the sound off: 80% of users get annoyed if your video auto plays with the sound on. Keep that volume off until they choose to switch it on.
• Upload native videos: On average, Facebook native videos get 168% more interactions, 477% more shares and 530% more comments than videos hosted off platform. It really pays to upload your videos directly to Facebook.
• Optimize for mobile: Users are 5 times as likely to watch your video on a mobile device. Make sure the size works!

b) The other networks

Hang on. So I just singled Facebook out and gave you a bunch of data, but I’m going to lump the other social media platforms together like they don’t matter?

Kind of. But there’s a good reason for this. Right now, we have a lot more data on Facebook video than on any other platform. And while we know that video performs well on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, the rules haven’t really been established yet. This means that you’ve got a huge opportunity!

You can pioneer and test different videos and see what works for you. You may even want to try out Facebook Live.

Here are some best Facebook video marketing tips to help you get started:

• Optimize for length and size: Instagram supports pre-recorded videos between 3-60 seconds. Twitter supports short pre-recorded videos up to 2 mins and 20 secs and no bigger than 512 MB in size. Check your platform’s requirements and optimize.
• Make it relevant for your audience: Relevance will always win out, no matter what platform you are on.
• Measure everything: Track your video’s performance and adjust your strategy accordingly.

4. Rule the video waves

We’ve talked about video topics, software and best practices. Now we need to take a look at the big guy. The one thing that will determine whether your strategy succeeds or fails:

Your content calendar.

Create a content calendar (and do what it says!)

You’ve got a content calendar for your blog posts. You use a social media management tool for your updates. And you need a content calendar for video.

A content calendar will keep you accountable and help you track results. It will make sure you never run out of ideas and help you plan ahead of time.

Because just like with a blog, maintaining a consistent strategy is hard. Life happens. Other stuff comes up.

So, before you dive in, decide:

• How often you are going to make a video
• How you’ll track results
• What channel you want to experiment with first
• How the video will fit into your overall marketing strategy

Then, draft some topics and schedule publication dates.

By planning your content, using the assets you’ve already got and using the right software, you can create great videos for social media without decimating your marketing budget, renting super high-quality equipment or putting together a professional film crew.

Make some short videos, track the effect they’ve got on your social media and tell us about it. FOMO can push us into making some stupid decisions but in this case, missing out on video can have a pretty cruddy effect on your future strategy.

Don’t let the “lack of time” excuse keep you from using video to grow your social media channels. This is perhaps no.1 among all Facebook video marketing tips! Just try it, ASAP!

What do you struggle with the most when it comes to using video as part of your social media strategy? Let us know in the comments below.

The post Grow Your Reach Today With These Facebook Video Marketing Tips appeared first on Revive Social.