To demonstrate social network success, savvy brand marketers must identify what success means, and then understand how it can be tracked.

To justify spending and ensure budget for future projects, it is crucial that marketers can demonstrably prove the success of a given campaign. As the economy worsens, and the struggle for budget becomes increasingly more challenging, it becomes even more important. While the majority of digital marketing can provide highly quantifiable results, social media can prove challenging. These networks are nebulous webs of people friending one another and sharing select information, and they frequently can't be measured in clickthroughs or conversions. This article will explore how to create a metrics program to track the success of a campaign, using examples from major brands to illustrate different approaches.

1. Determine what to measure
The first step is determining what to measure. Start by considering why social media is being used in a particular campaign, and then look for ways to measure the results. It is important to set the campaign up for success. Don't track data that is hard to gather, but do set your sights on the low-hanging fruit that will yield meaningful results. For example, many sites offer a tool enabling users to post content to their Facebook or MySpace pages. By using a tool such as Omniture, it is possible to track the frequency with which users are posting, and which networks they are using. By tracking this information, meaningful insights into the resonance and value of material on the site can be gauged.

2. Take advantage of existing tools
Social networking sites recognize that they live or die by their user base, and they understand that advertisers on these sites want specific insights into who they are talking to and how the message is being received. By using Facebook's sophisticated tool kit, it is possible to track specifically who is engaging, and what they are doing there.

Even if the numbers aren't hard, it is still possible to use social networking to track brand perception and better service the consumer. Twitter is a platform where users post 180 character updates on what they are doing, either through a mobile interface or via the web. Unlike Facebook or MySpace, it's not a forum for emailing or playing games and, as such, provides fewer hooks to a brand marketer seeking to promote a message. Yet, there are ways to integrate the platform onto the site (take a look at the Betty Crocker clip below, as an example). Using tools like TweetScan, it is possible to see how frequently the brand name is being referenced on the site, and to react to any kind of coverage.

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