It began with your growth chart as a child, and it continues today: It's important to measure and track your progress. Today, your progress is more about your development as a business. As you implement new insurance agency marketing ideas, how do you know if they're working for your agency? Determine whether your social media plan is working for your business by tracking and evaluating these metrics.

Watch Your Followers Grow

How many people follow your business on Twitter? How's your Facebook group growing? This metric is a very rough one, but it's still important to note. While more Facebook friends doesn't always translate into more sales, the growth of your social media followers means a growth in the audience who could see your posts and might click on them.

Track Your Social Media Shares

While this is not the most scientific approach to determine whether your social media efforts are working, it is a simple one. According to Social Media Today, when you "see more "Likes," "favorites," "shares," and "retweets," you can tell that what you're publishing is drawing in interest." Use your social media success as a rough estimate that can guide your eye to look more carefully at the other success factors behind these posts.

Website Analytics

Your social media accounts might be popular, but does this turn into clicks through to your website? Looking at the metrics on your site can give you a clearer indication of how social media shares translate into website visits. Use programs, such as Google Analytics, to understand where your visitors come from, where they go, and how long they stay on your site.

Real Life Results

Website visits and social media shares are important. What's even more important is whether they turn into real sales results. During a successful social media campaign, you should see an upswing in the sales of products and services related to that campaign. If you notice that a specific insurance product that was highlighted in your social media campaign suddenly becomes one of your most popular products, the two could be related. Find out: connect with your customers and ask them how they heard about your insurance company. Track your social media campaigns and learn what type of campaign yields results.

Track Your Return

You're tracking your sales. Now go deeper and evaluate the return on investment from your social media campaign. If you've just increased the hours of the person who's responsible for social media, track the correlation between social media and sales. Connect the new sales amount to the cost of social media development, and you'll have a sense of how much of a return on investment you can anticipate from an expansion of your social media campaign. Track the changes as your campaign progresses, and you can find your social media sweet spot: the amount of investment you need to make to get the best return.

Review Your Results

Your metrics tell the hidden story of your social media success. While you can't always predict which social media posts will be successful, by looking at what posts lead to more followers and likes and translate into an ultimate return on investment, you can guide your future posts. Commit to reviewing your social media metrics on a regular basis so that you can improve your performance.

Are you trying to grow your insurance business? American Agents Alliance is here to help. With our network of insurance agency professionals, we're ready to give you the support you need to grow in your social media presence. Contact us today to learn more about our membership benefits.