Social Media ROI Guide: How to Track & Grow Your ROI

Peter Drucker once dropped a wisdom bomb that many marketers and business owners now embrace.

He said, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.”

There is so much truth to that statement.

Whether you’re looking to improve your hiring process, ad campaigns, or lead generation efforts, you need to start tracking and measuring your results.

Of course, the same can be said for your social media marketing initiatives.

To determine whether the social media marketing campaigns you’re running for your clients are yielding meaningful results, you need to track your numbers and calculate your social media ROI.

What you will learn

• What is social media ROI?
• Why understanding social media ROI is important
• How to track social media ROI
• Best practices for growing social media ROI
• Track and grow social media ROI like a pro

What is social media ROI?

Social media Return on Investment (ROI) is the value returned from social media marketing. 

It measures social media marketing campaigns’ benefits compared to the total time, effort, and money invested. 

Simply put, social media ROI measures the results of your marketing efforts compared to its costs. 

Measuring ROI tells you if your social media strategy generates positive outcomes based on your clients’ marketing goals. 

You can use this formula to calculate social media ROI:

Your clients profit from social media campaigns if the value exceeds zero percent. An ROI below zero percent means your clients are losing money. 

However, the formula above is only used for a basic ROI calculation. 

To get more accurate and in-depth calculations, you must look at multiple social media ROI metrics, such as engagement and impressions, and compare them against the campaign’s cost. 

Some of the key metrics to track to determine social media ROI include the following:

• Engagement rate
• Reach
• Conversions
• Click-Through Rate (CTR)
• Cost Per Click (CPC)
• Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
• Follower Growth
• Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

[Must read: Ultimate Guide: How to Calculate Your Social Media Engagement Rate]

Why understanding social media ROI is important

Tracking social media ROI is critical for several reasons:

• You’ll get data-driven insights to know what works based on social media metrics that matter most to your clients
• You can determine where your and your clients’ time, money, and resources are best spent to drive expected results
• Justify your clients’ investments and advocate for additional budget and resources for social media marketing strategies when necessary 
• You’ll have valuable insights to help your clients adapt to market changes and trends quickly

Understanding ROI bridges the gap between your clients’ social media marketing efforts and expected business outcomes. 

How to track social media ROI

You can track and measure your clients’ social media ROI using spreadsheets and formulas.

However, this can involve a lot of manual processes, which are time-consuming and energy-draining. 

Plus, it can be open to human error. 

Using reliable software or tools is the best way to track and analyze social media ROI. 

For instance, most social media management platforms offer analytics features that help you track and analyze your clients’ ROI metrics. 

One such platform is Vista Social. 

The platform brings all your clients’ social media reporting and metrics into one dashboard and report. 

It gives you a comprehensive view of your clients’ content performance, audience engagement, reach, and ROI (among others).

Vista Social’s social media analytics feature lets you customize what you and your clients want to see in the reports to track and measure ROI. 

The Report builder allows you to create custom reports to save as templates. 

[Must read: How to Create Automated Social Media Reports]

Customize the report by specific metrics you want to include, such as social media ROI metrics. 

Other customization options include: 

• Adding a cover page
• Selecting the linked social media profiles to pull data from
• Adding text for each section
• Renaming the metrics
• Hiding sections the sections you want to exclude

Save the template and run the report by selecting the template and date range and downloading a PDF version that will be sent to your email.

Vista Social also lets you run and schedule social media analytics reports on your clients’ connected profiles.

Select the report you want to run, then set a schedule to send it automatically to your team and clients.

Set the time frame, the date to run the report, and the frequency. 

You can add email recipients where the reports will automatically be sent once available. 

[Must read: When to Automate Social Media]

This way, everyone gets regular updates, making social media ROI tracking and analysis hassle-free and efficient. 

The platform also lets you view the stats of each client’s published post, including reach, impressions, likes, total saves, and comments.

Important note: Vista Social syncs and refreshes this post statistics data every five to six hours. 

Vista Social eliminates manual social media ROI tracking and analysis, allowing you to quickly and easily gain actionable insights. 

The platform offers other robust features, from social media publishing and content scheduling to engagement management. 

Vista Social also has AI capabilities. 

Its ChatGPT-powered AI Assistant can instantly generate and improve post captions, hashtags, and message replies, saving you time and effort. 

Best practices for growing social media ROI

Growing your clients’ social media ROI takes the right strategies and consistent work. 

While ROI growth doesn’t happen overnight, there are tips and tricks to help point your efforts in the right direction, starting with the best practices below. 

• Identify your clients’ social media marketing goals. Determine what clients want their social media marketing efforts to achieve and the results they want to yield from their investments. Clear goals help guide your strategy and simplify tracking and measuring ROI
• Understand your clients’ target audiences. Know your clients’ ideal audiences, including their likes, preferences, and where they spend most of their time online. Tailor your clients’ content to their audiences’ interests, habits, and needs to boost engagement and, in turn, ROI
• Create and share quality content. Post valuable, relevant, and engaging content that resonates with your clients’ audiences. Social media content that audiences resonate with has a higher chance of driving engagement
• Run paid ads. Leverage targeted social media ads to help your clients reach wider audiences. Broadening your clients’ reach puts their brands in front of more people, boosting engagement opportunities that can lead to ROI growth 

[Must read: Ultimate Guide: How to Track Engagement on Social Media]

Track and grow social media ROI like a pro

While tracking and growing your clients’ social media ROI isn’t without challenges, the process can be smooth and effective with the right strategies and tools. 

Use the best tool to master tracking and growing social media ROI. 

Leverage Vista Social’s robust social media analytics and reporting features for seamless ROI tracking, so you can gain insights to help drive growth quickly. 

Create your FREE Vista Social account and have the social media platform do the heavy lifting.