Measuring ROI is a primary challenge for 57% of marketers, but only 12% of companies were able to track the effectiveness of their social media efforts against revenues.

Here are 5 steps which enable marketers to achieve ROI from social media:

1. Be social where shoppers are buying: as 74% of shoppers rely on social networks to guide their purchase decisions. And many of them trust the opinions of others nearly 12 times, more than messaging that comes from brands. So being social attracts consumers to those sites where your products and services are being sold.
2. Enable conversations that help consumers to buy: that can facilitate the type of shopper interactions which will directly support the sale.
3. Get found with fresh user-generated content: Analyze the conversations on your and your retailers’ sites about your products or services because that help you optimize for search.
4. Use multiple paths to show ROI: such as increasing transactions, increasing revenue per transaction, and decreasing product returns.
5. Measure your social mix to optimize results: by testing different social content types, formats, and messages to see how they perform.