January 8, 2024
Everyone — consumers and brands alike — is on social media. So getting consumers to notice you and your products is incredibly competitive. But if you’re not measuring the right data from your social channels, you’re missing out on crucial insights. That’s where a social media scorecard comes in.
It all starts with having a stellar social commerce strategy that blends compelling user-generated content (UGC) from your creator network with memorable (and seamless) shopping experiences.
This approach helps you stand out on social media, connect with shoppers authentically, drive traffic, and convert at e-commerce. It also gives you plenty of data to measure your success.
But data points alone don’t tell the full story — you need to delve deeper into customer sentiment and what your competitors are doing. You can get the most out of your insights with a social media scorecard.
Chapters:
- What is a social media scorecard?
- The benefits of a social media scorecard
- What to include in your social media scorecard
- Social social media scorecard template
What is a social media scorecard?
A social media scorecard numerically demonstrates the value of your social media marketing efforts. It’s a structured method of tracking your social commerce efforts using true data.
Social commerce refers to integrating social media content and e-commerce. It’s an experience that consumers increasingly want and expect brands to deliver.
54% of shoppers say they’re more likely to buy a product on social media when they can click the post and get product details right then. Shoppers want to be inspired and entertained by your content — but they also want social experiences to include information that helps them feel confident purchasing. Best-in-class social commerce programs include several essentials:
- Curated and shareable UGC: Consumers want to see how your products look and work in real life. Collecting content from your most loyal customers — your most authentic voices — about your most popular products will resonate with other shoppers and boost purchases
- Get your content noticed: Amplify UGC by featuring it in your marketing campaigns. Showcasing content from real shoppers heightens your authenticity and boosts engagement.
- Make content shoppable: Make it easy for people to buy in the moment. Ensure that all your content, including UGC, features a link to buy to increase sales.
Measuring the impact of your social commerce program is vital. But you need to look beyond traditional metrics and focus on contextual data, such as sentiment, customer satisfaction, and how you measure up against your competitors.
A social media scorecard incorporating this data helps you improve your brand reputation, stay on top of trends, stand out, and create your own niche.
The benefits of a social media scorecard
CEOs are generally part of a brand’s social/PR strategy, albeit in more of a spokesperson role. But if you want to make the most of your social media strategies and really deliver a worthy social ROI, you and your team need to be actively using social insights and data to guide you.
Using a social media scorecard to track and deliver these insights across teams will enable you to:
- Identify growth opportunities. Social listening insights reveal customer preferences, new trends, and shopper pain points. Using these insights can help you create more focused campaigns and products that drive sales
- Track your competition. Competition is fierce, especially in the social sphere. Combining your own KPIs and metrics against competitor and industry benchmarks can identify the strengths and weaknesses of your rivals, so you can set smarter goals
- Gauge customer sentiment of your brand. Insights are more than just getting a few likes on your instagram posts. Social is an always-on focus group that reveals the customer sentiment about your brand and products. You can discover what shoppers like about your brand, customer service, and products, and use that to guide your offerings
What to include in your social media scorecard
To tap into the ever-changing social media landscape and grow e-commerce, you’ll need to include these components in your social media scorecard.
Content collection
No doubt your brand is sitting on a goldmine of social content. Instagram alone sees about 4 million pieces of content posted every hour, and TikTok has one billion monthly users. Collecting and leveraging this content is central to social commerce.
Comb social media for brand mentions, or simply ask consumers to post about you. 60% will take photos if you ask them to, and 53% appreciate brands telling them what kind of content to post.
Shoppers consider UGC to be more social, interactive, and authentic than traditional marketing messages. It creates organic engagement, and when you make content shoppable, it drives sales — and you can track both of these metrics.
Site display and experience
Displaying social content, like customer photos and videos, creates shoppable features to showcase your products on product pages and anywhere you sell. When you optimize your product pages with social proof (a phenomenon where people mimic the actions of others on social media), sales and revenue soar.
We’ve found that when shoppers interact with these galleries, you can see e-commerce conversions increase up to 140%. When you display ratings with the gallery photos, conversions jump 5x.
Product sampling campaigns offer unique experiences to shoppers, increase content, and inspire others. Bazaarvoice’s tools help you make this content shoppable by tagging products and requesting rights, enabling you to make data-driven decisions about what content drives the biggest results.
Marketing amplification
Using paid ads that feature UGC drives conversions. Facebook’s and Instagram’s algorithms give more exposure to ads with high engagement. Each social media platform lets you monitor ad campaigns and offers analytics so you can keep tabs on your return on investment (ROI).
On Instagram, you can turn any post into an ad to target specific audiences and also create ads across platforms and apps, such as Facebook and Messenger. You can also promote photo, product, and video pins on Pinterest and directly link to checkout pages. Plus, TikTok’s ad options include in-feed ads and video shopping ads. Include every social channel you’re on in your social media scorecard.
Analytics and competitor insights
Social listening — where you monitor keywords, hashtags, and other content surrounding your brand — helps you see how successful your social commerce campaigns actually are. It also helps inform future strategies.
Delving into customer insights like engagement metrics, feedback, and reviews lets you get the most out of social commerce. You’ll learn what consumers are saying about you and gain a competitive edge.
You’ll understand what types of content shoppers consider most engaging through Social Analytics. You should also compare your competitors’ social metrics and KPIs against your own, so you’ll know where to focus your efforts.
Social media management
Traditionally, social media marketing and e-commerce teams often work in silos. Each team has its own focus without a complete picture of the full funnel and what entices someone to purchase based on a social media interaction.
However, working together, these teams can skyrocket social commerce conversions. You’ll be able to collect, curate, and create high-performing, authentic social content — and measure its performance. And the best part? It also saves time and money to streamline social media management.
Technical health
Consumers’ perceptions about your brand and products should be a key part of your social media scorecard. Gathering and featuring UGC and tracking the engagement offers insights into what consumers think and inspires future social commerce.
Include customer service metrics, too. Track messages received, responses, reply times, and customer satisfaction. Both brand perception and customer service are crucial for tracking your technical and brand health.
Earned media value
Make sure to include the amount you would have spent achieving the same level of promotion as your organic social efforts. Your earned media value is essentially how much your brand is saving with organic social content.
Social social media scorecard template
A social commerce strategy is an authentic way to drive sales and heighten customer engagement. Having a social media scorecard in your marketing arsenal can ensure your approach hits the mark — helping you stand out, drive sales, and boost social and web traffic.
Just make sure your scorecard includes content collection, site display and experience, marketing amplification, analytics and insights, social media management, and technical health.
An easy way to get started is with Bazaarvoice’s own social media scorecard insights — get full funnel metrics and benchmarks, trending data, and insights into your audience and competitors all from a customizable dashboard. Learn more here.
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