Have you ever been asked to show the return on investment (ROI) for your social media work?

Have you had trouble giving an exact number to explain your ROI or even set quantitative goals for your social media?

25% of marketers said that their biggest marketing challenge was finding the ROI of their marketing activities.

In this article, I’ll show you how to tweak some of your social media actions with your business goals in mind and make them easier to tie to your ROI.

#1: Use Social Media to Promote Your Offers

Social media is an important channel to promote any content you create. Whether you’ve created an ebook, blog post, webinar or white paper, you should promote it through social media.

Tap into your social audience whether you’re on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn,Google+ or Pinterest.

Social Media Examiner uses Twitter to share content and generate traffic.

As you can see on Twitter, it’s important to link to all of your content with your tweets. And remember to include hashtags to gain further visibility on Twitter.

For other social channels such as Facebook or Google+, take advantage of the visual real estate you have and include an engaging photo.

Social Media Examiner adds the image of the report on a Facebook update.

On LinkedIn, post your content in marketing groups that are discussing similar marketing principles.

Is one of your goals for your business to engage potential prospects on social media? Then you’ll want to make sure you use each social media platform in the best way to connect with them.

#2: Tag Your URLs so You Know They Come from Social

Part of tying your social media efforts to ROI is to understand what actually comes from social media. You may be promoting an offer across multiple channels, but without understanding if it’s successful or unsuccessful through social media or another channel, it’s hard to plan future campaigns.

One way to attribute campaigns to social media is to tag the URL so you know it comes from social.

In the example below, you can see that the link was promoted on social media because of the UTM tags in the URL line at the top that say “twitter” and “social.”

Link to landing page coming from social.

A UTM tag allows you to add identifying information to your URL that will help youkeep track of the source the link is coming from. By doing this, you’ll be able to properly track what comes from social media vs. other channels.

Is one of your goals to understand how your social media is working for you? Then you’ll want to be sure to track the traffic that comes from social media to see what’s working and what needs to be tweaked.

#3: Survey Your Customers About How They Found You

Another way to find out where your customers are first hearing about your company is through surveys. Include a question that asks how your customers found your company at strategic points of contact. This will help you find out where your visitors first found your company.

In the image below from Born Free, you can see the options for their survey.

Here’s an example of a survey that answers the question “How did you hear about us?”

Of course, when you gather this information from your customers, you can use it to tie into measuring your social media ROI. And it can also be helpful when planning which marketing resources should be used more heavily.

Is one of your business goals to get more leads from social media? Then be sure toinclude a tracking mechanism, such as asking your clients where they first heard about you.

#4: Use Google+ to Influence Your SEO Presence

Don’t forget about using one of the newest social media platforms, Google+. SEO consultants have proven that having a presence on Google+, Google Places andGoogle Authorship can help your SEO. And good SEO translates into better online visibility for your business.

In the case of Google Authorship, your content (especially when you upload a picture) may appear at the top of search engine results.

Here’s an example. Twitter announced that it’s opening its advertising platform to all users in the United States. When you search for “social media twitter advertising,” the first article to appear after a New York Times article and sponsored results is an article that is pulled in from Google+ with an image.

Search results for “social media twitter advertising.”

Also, remember Google pulls in data from social media to make sure that its results are also influenced by social activity.

Appearing higher up on the page on Google’s search results directly influences your business ROI because most people do not click past the first page on Google results. Having your results appear there will drive more traffic to your website.

Is one of your business goals to get more web traffic? Then you’ll want to optimize your presence on Google’s platforms and track how visible your business is in their search engine results.

Use the best social media tactics to tie activity to your ROI.

Remember, you don’t want to fall into thinking that social media is a panacea to cure all of your business’s problems. And don’t expect to see immediate results.

How to Improve Your Social Media Marketing Return on Investment | Social Media Examiner.

The last time the housing market was this hot in Phoenix and Las Vegas, the buyers pushing up prices were mostly small time. Nowadays, they are big time — Wall Street big.

Large investment firms have spent billions of dollars over the last year buying homes in some of the nation’s most depressed markets. The influx has been so great, and the resulting price gains so big, that ordinary buyers are feeling squeezed out. Some are already wondering if prices will slump anew if the big money stops flowing.

“The growth is being propelled by institutional money,” said Suzanne Mistretta, an analyst at Fitch Ratings. “The question is how much the change in prices really reflects market demand, rather than one-off market shifts that may not be around in a couple years.”

Wall Street played a central role in the last housing boom by supplying easy — and, in retrospect, risky — mortgage financing. Now, investment companies like the Blackstone Group have swooped in, buying thousands of houses in the same areas where the financial crisis hit hardest.

Blackstone, which helped define a period of Wall Street hyperwealth, has bought some 26,000 homes in nine states. Colony Capital, a Los Angeles-based investment firm, is spending $250 million each month and already owns 10,000 properties. With little fanfare, these and other financial companies have become significant landlords on Main Street. Most of the firms are renting out the homes, with the possibility of unloading them at a profit when prices rise far enough.

While these investors have not touched many healthy real estate markets, they are among the biggest buyers in struggling areas of the country where housing prices have been increasing the fastest. Those gains, in turn, have been at the leading edge of rising home prices nationwide.

Some see the emergence of Wall Street buyers as a market-driven answer to the nation’s housing ills. Investment companies are buying up rundown homes at a time when ordinary people can’t or won’t.

Nationwide, 68 percent of the damaged homes sold in April went to investors, and only 19 percent to first-time home buyers, according to Campbell HousingPulse. That is helping to shore up prices and create confidence in the broader markets.

“When people write the story of this housing recovery, these investors will be seen to have helped put the floor under the housing market,” said David Bragg, an analyst at Green Street Advisors. “In some of the key markets, that contributed to the recovery.”

The story, though, often looks more complicated on the ground. Joe Cusumano, a real estate agent in Riverside County, Calif., said that in recent months 90 percent of his business had been for companies like Invitation Homes, a Blackstone subsidiary. Home values in Riverside County have risen by 15 percent in the last year, according to CoreLogic.

But Mr. Cusumano said he wondered if faraway investors would properly maintain the homes they buy. He said that Invitation Homes had been willing to put money into the properties, but he was not so sure about the other players. He also worries what will happen when these investors start selling, as they inevitably will.

Behind the Rise in House Prices, Wall Street Buyers – NYTimes.com.