Measuring ROI on your Social Media channels can definitely be tricky, especially if you define the actual “return” on a social media activity in terms of direct sales.

The truth is that it’s very rare to see a “click-to-buy” initiated directly from a social media channel. Social Media’s advantage comes more from developing intangibles such as brand recognition, brand loyalty, brand reputation, word-of-mouth, and overall brand/product awareness which ultimately lead to sales down the road.

The best way to measure the success of your brand through Social Media is through number and type of visitors (or followers). People who regularly visit your Social Media outlets are the best measurement of your strategy’s usefulness because they indicate the amount and type of interest your Social Media channels are generating.

Here are the major Social Media returns you can measure:

Facebook/MySpace: Number of fans/friends, number of comments per day/week/month, number of discussions started by fans.

Twitter: Number of qualified followers (qualified meaning actual people, not bots), number of re-tweets.

Blogging: Number of comments, number of subscribers, number of links posts, number of re-tweets.
Forums/Message Boards: Number of new members, number of posts per day, number of topics started per week, number of active members per month.

Videos/Photos: Number of views, number of comments, ratings, number of subscribers/friends.

The different types of visitor interactions with your Social Media sites can tell you a lot. And not just in terms of numbers. Through their comments and feedback they can tell you if you’re developing a healthy relationship with your target audience. They can tell you if what you’re doing and saying is valuable, informative, interesting and entertaining. They can provide feedback and reinforcement for your brand positioning and personality. They can tell you what your customer likes, wants and needs. This type of information is invaluable to your business. In many respects, this information is your ROI.

While intangibles will rule your ROI measurements for Social Media, ultimately the goal is to convert visitors into paying customers. You achieve this by cultivating a relationship of trust, respect, and even admiration through magnetic social communication. Effective social media attracts, qualifies, and conditions your visitors through the use of compelling quality content. Don’t just Tweet about anything. Strive to have something important to say. Add value wherever and whenever you can.

You’ll know your content is hitting the mark if your number of followers are growing continually. When followers, fans and friends are growing, there’s also a strong correlation to increased product sales. Be sure to pay attention to this correlation in your sales numbers versus Social Media traffic. It will be another strong indicator of ROI.

If numbers of visitors to your Social Media outlets starts lagging, look into changing up your content to better reflect the demands of the consumer, or post more regularly to keep things fresh and on the cutting-edge.