Peter Drucker is famously quoted as saying “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” In a proper social media strategy, it’s extremely important to carefully choose what you measure, and how you make decisions based upon that information.

For instance you might choose to look at the number of social followers of your direct competitors. While that measure may seem important, the number alone doesn’t tell you the whole story. You’ll likely have no idea where they acquired those followers from, how truly engaged those followers actually are, or how much those followers buy from their company. Even if you could know some of that information, it’s hard to see how that information would help you improve your business objectives.

By contrast running social searches and identifying trends in the complaints that people post about your direct competitor is extremely valuable.

Looking at how many likes a photo gets isn’t nearly important as knowing the conversion rate on your remarketing campaign. Looking at the data to see what time of day your particular audience is on Facebook can be extremely valuable. Figuring out which age range or geographic location produces a click-through at the lowest cost is valuable.

You should be looking at what social sites your website traffic is coming from. Look at the quality of traffic originating from any social media site. Tracking what social media activities drive leads. Looking at your Analytics tells you where to dedicate your time moving forward.

The point is, measure what matters. Measure what you want to manage. The things you choose to manage should somehow help you make payroll.