Is Your Social Media Strategy Getting Results? Here’s How to Know
You’re posting. You’re engaging. But if your content isn’t getting real business results, real paying clients, what’s the point? When it comes to social media marketing are you actually measuring what matters? Or are you guessing?
If you are, you’re not alone. In fact, a 2025 survey from HootSuite showed that 96% of marketers agree that social media marketing delivers positive returns, but 83% of marketers said that social media ROI was difficult to measure with the primary difficulty being knowing the right metrics to use. Follower counts and likes look nice, but they only matter if they move the needle for your bottom line.
What Social Media ROI Actually Means
In traditional performance-based marketing, ROI or return on investment is a pretty straightforward calculation. Subtract the marketing cost from the revenue generated, then divide that result by the marketing cost. For social media though, the picture is often not so clear. In our world, ROI = actions that drive your business forward. Depending on your specific brand and business, that could mean:
- Appointments scheduled
- Qualified leads generated
- Web traffic that converts into customers
- E-commerce sales from social posts
- Brand awareness that leads to future customers
Likes and shares are great, but only if they lead to something tangible.
5 Red Flags That Your Social Media Strategy Isn’t Generating Results
- You’re gaining followers but not seeing an increase in your website traffic or sales.
- You’re only monitoring likes and comments.
- Your social posts never show up in your website analytics.
- Your sales team never hears about customers seeing you on social.
- You’re posting content but there’s no plan, goal, or call to action.
Social Media Metrics That Really Matter
When you think about social media metrics, it’s likely that the first metrics that come to mind are things like follower count, likes, impressions and views – the so-called “vanity metrics” that can make you feel good about performance on paper but don’t reflect much in terms of actual business impact or success. Vanity metrics can be misleading in that they can create the impression of success but lack the context to draw meaningful conclusions about the true effectiveness of your efforts.
If you really want your social media posts to turn into paying customers, there are other more actionable metrics to pay attention to:
- Engagement Rate and Quality: Tells you how many viewers are actually engaging with your content and whether they are real, qualified potential customers or just bots and spam.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Tracks the percentage of viewers that click on your posts and tells you if your captions and calls to action are compelling for your audience.
- Website Traffic from Social Media: Monitors how much traffic your website receives from social media and if that traffic converts to leads or sales and tells you if you are reaching the right audience and moving them through the funnel to the next step.
- Conversion Rate and Attribution: Tracks how many web visitors or leads convert into sales and where they are coming from and tells you about the quantity and quality of audience you are reaching.
Tracking Basics for Social Media ROI
Once you know what metrics to look for, it’s time to make sure that you’re set up to track them effectively. That means making sure that the basics are in place from a tracking perspective:
- Set up UTM links to track campaigns in Google Analytics where appropriate.
- Add Meta Pixel of LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website.
- Make sure you are labeling or tracking the source of incoming leads in your CRM system.
- Connect social media platforms to your appointment booking or e-commerce platform where appropriate.
- Review performance monthly. (at least)
Case In Point: Does It Really Work?
Does shifting your social media mindset from adequacy to action really work? Here are just a few real results that we’ve seen in working with our social media clients:
- A 97% year over year increase in website traffic generated by social media for a local real estate brand
- A 340% increase in website clicks from LinkedIn for a regional B2B service provider
- A 45% boost in real content engagement on Facebook for a local financial services firm
- A $1.6 million new home sold to an out-of-state client who saw a tour of the home on Instagram
DIY or Done For You? Choose What Works for You
A DIY approach on social media may be a great place to start if you are just getting going or in the very early stages of your brand – especially if you enjoy a deep dive into analytics. However, if your business:
- Is mid-sized or larger
- Has a marketing budget of $2500 per month or more
- Needs consistent growth and dedicated resources to manage it
then it’s probably time to partner with a team that can make your social media marketing work for you to generate real business results, not just a pretty feed.
Your Results Are Only As Good As Your Strategy
If you want to generate real results from social media marketing, you need a smart strategy, consistent execution, and clear tracking. It’s important to make sure that your strategy is tuned to serve clear business goals and that you are tracking meaningful performance metrics to understand the real ROI your social media efforts are providing in terms of real business impact.
Ready for a Social Media Strategy Check-Up?
Connect with the Clementine team today! We’d love to chat about your current social media strategy and needs, what’s working and what’s not, and how you might improve your results to meet and exceed your goals.