Measuring ROI of social media marketing

1) Determine the key figures:

Most of the time it's hard to measure customer loyalty, customer retention or the increase of attention. The problem with this key figures is their measurability: figures such as the loyalty of you customers are hard to determine and there is a lot of space for other interpretations.

For example your campaign goal could be to increase "influence" and you might measure this by the number of influential blogs linking to you and the number of influential twitters retweeting you.

2) Defining the goals:

An important factor of success is thinking about the targets of the campaign. However targets need to ensure the campaign objectives and must be set realistically. Before we start with a social media campaign we need to discuss very detailed the objectives which we're trying to achieve.

3) Implement the strategy: 

If the points above mentioned are defined clearly, it is time to implement the strategy. It is necessary to track the strategy during the beginning. Then you can review the indicators and targets. You'll have time to optimize or direct the campaign if something went wrong. In social media means that you must be present means and taking dialogues and suggestions from the "outside" seriously.