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Businesses jump into the social media bandwagon because of the many benefits it is supposed to bring to the brand. You invest a considerable amount of resources in the social media campaign. You write meaningful blog posts, you tweet to share information and interact, you have a Facebook Page with a good number people "Liking" it and you also have a credible LinkedIn presence. You have done all that is required, but how do you measure the tangible benefits that social media bring for your brand or business? How does Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other networking sites impact your brand awareness?

Smart businesses know that unless you measure something, you cannot control it. The same applies to social media. Unless you measure the efficacy of the social media campaigns and their impact on your business, there is absolutely no way of knowing whether the campaign is a success or not. But, due to the very nature of social media, tangible measurement of results is difficult. Besides, social media is a new phenomenon. Companies are just evolving and developing new tools that can provide some indication of how effective their social media endeavors are.

There isn't any clear cut answer to the question of how you can measure the impact of social media on your business. But there are some simple steps that companies can undertake to build a strategy to measure social media performance.

What you need to remember is that social media engagement also strives to achieve the same end results that traditional marketing tools aim to achieve. Brand awareness, customer engagement, brand recall etc. are parameters that remain constant, no matter what tool is used to achieve them.

The main disadvantage of traditional marketing methods such as television or print ads is that it is more of broadcasting than interacting. Also, these are broadcast to a wide group of people, and there is a high probability that your message reaches even those people who have absolutely no interest in your product. Social media, on the other hand, allows for targeted marketing. If you have a loyal fan following for your blog, you know that there is already a minimum interest level. Therefore, targeting these audience is relatively easy and can possibly get more results.

You need to look at how many people you have attracted to your business through social media. This forms your core group of captive audience or target market. Take a look at the number of followers on Twitter and Facebook. Check the number of unique visitors to your blog or website. These form tangible measure of how many people you have been able to attract to your brand via the social media tools.

Also track the growth rate of these numbers. If the number of subscribers show a steady growth over the months, you can be sure that you are on the right track.

The next thing to measure is the number of people who have engaged with your message. On a Facebook fan page, take a look at the number of people who "Like" or comment on your posts. Twitter followers may retweet interesting messages. Youtube viewers may share your video with their friends through other social networking tools such as Facebook, Digg etc.

To measure traffic, sales etc. there are many free tools available online that will help you with this kind of measurements. Google Analytics and Feedburner are the most popular. They let you analyze the blog or website traffic, subscriber number and also provide other helpful information.

Along with measuring the level of engagement, it is also important to measure whether it was done in a positive or negative light. Being retweeted over a million times for something that is detrimental to your company is not what you are looking for. To check sentiment results, use tools such as Social mention, ScoutLabs etc. But always double check sentiment analyses manually.

Social media is still evolving by leaps and bounds. And due to that very reason, measurement of social media results is also a continuously evolving field.

For some more insight into whether social media results can be measured or not, check this great article: Is Social Media Marketing Measurable? The Big Debate