This article was originally posted in January 2018, but has been updated for the new year, 2019.

Earlier this week we asked the question what are your goals for using social video in 2019? Once you’ve determined your 2019 social video marketing objectives, you’ll need to figure out how you’re going to measure whether or not you were successful in achieving your goals.

In this article, we’ll dive in to some tips for measuring results, including how to phrase your objectives so that it will be clear what you’re measuring and some tools you can use to help you analyze the success of your social video campaigns.

Set measurable objectives

First things first, you’ll need to make sure you’re setting goals and objectives that are actually measurable. In our last post, we went through a list of objectives, including driving brand awareness, engagement, sales, and more. But in order to figure out if you’ve been successful you need to tie numbers, as well as dates, to each of your goals.

If your goal is to increase traffic to your website, how much do you want to increase traffic and by when? “Drive more traffic to my website” is not a measurable goal, but “Use video to drive at least 500 new website visits each month” definitely is. You’ll be able to track how many people visited your website as a result of your video campaigns and check in on a monthly basis to see how you’re doing. You may want to choose to set monthly goals, yearly goals, or a combination of both.

When you’re just starting out with social video marketing you may have no concept of how much traffic a video can drive to your website or how many people you can reach with $50 ad spend. That’s ok! You’ll learn these things as you go, and it’s totally fine to start with some simple goals to begin with. Perhaps your objective is simply to run one Facebook video ad each month with the sole intention of learning. As you get more experienced, you can start setting more advanced goals.

Distinguish between overall success and individual videos

It’s important to note that every video you make won’t be a success, and that’s ok! In fact, it would be surprising if it was. You’ll learn from the videos that don’t perform as well, try new things, and, over time, figure out what works best for your particular business. That’s why you’ll want to be sure to distinguish between your goals for specific videos and campaigns and your goals for your social video marketing initiatives as a whole.

Use the tools you have at your disposal

So how do you actually measure success? Luckily there are a number of powerful (and free) tools you can use. We’ll take a quick look at Facebook Insights, Facebook Ads Manager, Google Analytics, and a few of our favorite task management tools.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights is Facebook’s built-in analytics tool. It breaks down the data on individual posts, as well as your page overall, and includes everything from information on post engagements to video views, reach, page views, and more. You can access Insights by clicking at the top of your Facebook page when logged in to Facebook’s Business Manager. You can learn how to get started in Facebook’s Help Center.

You can get next-level insights by installing the Facebook pixel on your website. Installing a snippet of code will allow you to see what happened on  your website as a direct result of your ad and more.

Facebook Ads Manager

You’ll set your ads up in Facebook Ads Manager, but the fun doesn’t end there. Ads Manager offers real time reporting tools that’ll show you whether your ads are driving their intended goal, which means you can pause them if they aren’t or choose to put more money behind them if they are. You can also check out performance trends over time in order to maximize your Facebook advertising spend. Learn more on Facebook.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a wonderful tool that can help you track your social video efforts as well. It’ll show you how much traffic comes to your website via social and, using UTM codes you can get an even deeper understanding of how specific posts are performing.

UTM codes are bits of text added to your URLs or links that will tell Google Analytics where traffic was directed from. So when you create a Facebook Ad, or simply post a video organically with a link included, you should add UTM parameters in order to check how many clicks come through as a result of your video efforts, and what other actions those clicks are resulting in.

Buffer’s Complete Guide to UTM Codes is a great resource for getting started with UTMs.

Task Management Tools

Finally, for your objectives that are more task-based, like creating at least 1 video per month, a task management tool can be helpful for staying accountable. There are a huge number of free task management tools out there. A few of our favorites include Wunderlist (it plays a great “ding!” sound whenever you check off a task) and Trello. We’d love to hear about your favorites as well. Feel free to share them in the comments below!

If you haven’t downloaded our Guide to Building a Winning Social Video Strategy, grab the download here. And head over to our Social Video Marketing Community on Facebook to share your ideas and videos throughout the year. Happy video making!