Dell computers was founded by Michael Dell in Essays

Dell computers was founded by Michael Dell in Essays Dell computers was founded by Michael Dell in Essay Dell computers was founded by Michael Dell in Essay Table of Contentss Page 1 1.0 Introduction Page 2 Report Page 3 2.0 Mission Statement Page 3 3.0 Dell’s Operation Page 3 4.0 Dell in the UK Page 4 5.0 Competition Page 7 6.0 Dells’ Current Strategy Page 8 7.0 Drawbacks Page 9 7.0 Decision Page 10 Bibliography Page 11 1.0 Introduction This study will show a instance of the Dell Corporation, enlargement into the UK market, which is introduced both a merchandise and service to the new market that differentiated itself from rivals. The study offers a short profile of the company, looking at the development of concern and selling schemes by Dell in the UK. Then the strengths and failings of the company’s schemes are discussed, in relation to their enlargement into the UK market. Dell Inc, was once known as Dell Computer Corporation, and was founded by Michael Dell in 1984. The administration designs, develops, industries, markets, services and supports a scope of computing machine systems, package and peripherals. The company was started with merely a 1,000 US Dollars and the invention was to cut out the jobber in the personal computing machine market. The construct has turned Michael Dell into one of the wealthiest work forces in America today, although this method of selling computing machines was non as readily accepted in the UK market ( www.dell.com ) . In the USA the company shortly commenced fabricating its ain IBM-compatible computing machines under the name PCs Limited. Gross saless reached about 6 million US Dollars during the company’s first twelvemonth, mounting to 34 million US Dollars the undermentioned twelvemonth. By 1987 Dell was the prima mail order computing machine company in the United States. In the same twelvemonth it created a gross revenues force to aim big corporations and began adding international offices to capture the direct-mail market outside the United States. The company’s headquarter are based in Round Rock, Texas ( www.dell.com ) . Dell continues to advance its Personal computers as extremely stable and manageable, perforating all sectors of the market. In a market with small distinction between sellers, the company continues to utilize monetary value and service as a distinction. Dell s merchandise scheme is based on the standardization of merchandise platforms and to be engineering reactive to market tendencies. They offer the consumer a full scope of computing machine systems, including desktop computing machine systems, notebook computing machines, workstations, web waiters and storage merchandises, storage country web, solutions every bit good as an drawn-out choice of peripheral hardware, calculating package and related services ( www.dell.com ) . When the administration entered the UK Market it uncounted unanticipated jobs with their scheme, and adapted their policies in an effort to get the better of these. One of the major unmanageable factors of their merchandise and services was the UK’s consumer’s reluctance to purchase goods unobserved. The consumers purchasing wonts included the tangibleness of the physical merchandise, to touch before they buy. 2.0MissionStatement The mission statement of Dell is to be the most successful computing machine company in the universe at presenting the best client experience in markets they serve ( www.dell.com ) . The administration aims to run into client outlooks of the highest quality merchandise, taking engineering, competitory pricing, single and company answerability, best service and support, flexible customisation capableness, superior corporate citizenship, and fiscal stableness. This statement clearly defines and communicates Dell’s scheme to all stakeholders ( Johnson, G A ; Scholes J 2004 ) . Each separate section of the administration contains their ain statements that promote and implement the mission statement. These statements are described as the Soul of Dell ( www.dell.com ) . The information is disseminated through communicating channels, both written and unwritten. This farther strengthens and implementing the codification of pattern ( Johnson, G A ; Scholes J 2004 ) . 3.0 Dell’s Operationss The computing machine administration is the universe s taking direct computing machine Systems and a premier provider of engineering for the Internet. The direct gross revenues channels include mail, telephone and the Internet. Currently they sell 50 million dollars deserving of ware a twenty-four hours. Each of Dell s representatives devotes their clip to gross revenues and service. Once a client places an order it starts the procedure of a built to order fabrication, buying and bringing procedure ( www.dell.com ) . If there is a job with a computing machine, the Dell representative has on-screen entree to a reservoir of solutions, gained from old ages of international feedback from clients. Every job and its solution, is collected on Dell s centralized computing machine. This besides contains inside informations of every client s purchase, by the usage of consecutive Numberss, a history of all single machines, provides aid for the life-time of the computing machine ( Management Today, June 1991 ) . This information circuits has two purposes: to short circuit the path between computing machine maker and the client ; and to utilize swift-moving feedback from single clients to give the best possible service to all ( Management Today, June 1991 ) . The cost benefits to Dell of this scheme of selling are considerable, though their supply Dell offers the consumer precisely the right merchandise constellation. Their capital is non tied in stock lists and therefore cut downing the hazard of disused stock. The successful growing of Dell would non hold transpired without them offering corporate clients the same method of buying. This was the first value in the invention of the administration ( Hoover, W.001 ) . 4.0 Dell in theUnited kingdom Globalisation has increased competition and has saturated both the competition in the domestic markets and the mark markets itself. This is caused by the high degree of competition among the take parting administrations in a given market section, increasing the merchandise scope. This degree of impregnation has increased the demand for farther development in the market to accomplish competitory advantage every bit good as sustainable growing in the concern ( Brassington, F Pettit, S 2003 ) . The administration entered the United kingdom market through a subordinate company, Dell UK, in Bracknell in 1987. The method of selling computing machines was treated with great agnosticism by the UK consumers ( Management Today, June 1991 ) . One of the grounds for this is the UK’s consumers were loath to purchase goods unobserved ( Management Today, June 1991 ) . This factor was at first the unmanageable factors of the new merchandise in the UK Market. Expansion of the administration can take topographic point when the market development is in a new location. Entry into the market is by and large at the same degree as the bing competition. This geographical spread is either nationally or internationally ( Lynch, R 2003 ) . Porter’s factor and demand conditions have been identified by the administration, and their scheme was to use the demand from big concerns ( Porter, M cited in Brassington, F A ; Pettitt, S 2003 ) . The administration used trade name consciousness, in an effort to get the better of this factor. Dell secured major clients ; these include BP, the RAF, Inchcape and the prison service. About 20 % of Dell’s gross is from the UK, although it merely has a little portion of the UK’s personal computing machine market. The UK is Dell s strongest abroad market ; the company is now the figure two participant, with gross revenues of more than 1 billion Dollars. Worldwide the house ranks fifth behind Compaq, IBM, Apple and NEC ( Management Today, Feb 1997 ) . Covering straight with corporate clients created an extra benefit for the administration. They kept costs down, while volume and market portion increased, this added to the trade name consciousness. Their mass distribution channels provided entree to a big new market, corporate clients. Another unmanageable factor from this scheme was the addition costs, in the signifier of merchandise obsolescence, mark-ups, and dealing costs ( Hoover, W.2001 ) . Dell has operates with dedicated sites for each major client, these reflect the company for which it operates ( Hoover, W.2001 ) . The administration followed a market development scheme, it moved beyond its immediate client base towards pulling new clients for its existing merchandises ( Ansoff cited in Lynch, R 2003 ) . This scheme frequently involves the sale of bing merchandises in new international markets. This may imply geographic expedition of new sections of a market, new utilizations for the company’s merchandises and services, or new geographical countries in order to lure new clients ( Lynch, R 2003 ) . Today the UK is the 2nd largest market for Dell outside the USA, and due to the huge chances present here, it is a precedence and valued market. Rodrigues ( 2003 ) Stated that Dell is non a company that rests on its awards so we are invariably reexamining the manner we do concern to stay competitory and run into client demands ( Rodrigues, B ( General Manager Dell UK ) ( 2003 ) cited in Rogers, J 2003:23 ) . gt ; From the concern position, the endeavor which includes waiters, storage and switches, and their services administration, are their cardinal strategic precedences for the UK. ( Rogers, J.2003 ) . Market development scheme can be utilised by an administration is confronting either/or competition or low merchandise take up. This can take topographic point either in the current market location or in a new geographical location ( Johnson, G A ; Scholes, K 2004 ) . The success of the organizational scheme, construction and competition within the place market are critical for growing. Administrations that have experienced strong competition in the domestic markets are more likely to win in international markets ( Porter, M cited in Groucutt, J. et al 2004 ) . The administration remained committed to their scheme, and has gained the figure one slot in the UK Personal computer Market. This was used as a platform, after suppressing the UK domestic market they have become the figure two Personal computer marketer in Western Europe, with market portion of 10.6 per cent. Spooner A ; Hallett ( 2004 ) described Dell as the brightest Star, in the IT industry in the UK ( Spooner, J. A ; Hallett, T. 2004 ) . Porter s Five Forces of Competitive Position model provides a simple position for measuring and analyzing the competitory strength and place of an administration, and hence make up ones minding which scheme to utilize ( Porter, M cited in Brassington, F A ; Pettitt, S 2003 ) . An progressively used as a scheme is distinction. Lynch ( 2005 ) discussed that distinction can be accomplished by two methods. The first is the procedure of value add-on, the administration differentiates through the quality and the value added to the merchandise. This attack will assist the administration place their rivals and distinguish itself through the value-addition schemes ( Lynch, R 2005 ) . The administration has differentiated through this scheme by cut downing costs and offering the consumer a high degree of client service. The quickly altering demands of clients and the velocity of technological alteration are met by an on-going procedure of redesign. This is practical through Dell s sophisticated R A ; D and the scheme of the administration constructing computing machines to order. Dell can respond rapidly to any alterations in the market, without big stocks of out-of-date engineering to sell ( Management Today, June 1991 ) . Price based schemes target the market on the footing of the price of the merchandise or service. Low-price scheme does non ever compromise the quality to cut down the cost. ( Lynch, R 2005 ) . Porter ( 2000 ) considered that to accomplish competitory advantage through pricing schemes, an administration could increase its net incomes through cut downing monetary values ( Porter, M ( 2000 ) cited in Kotler, P. et al 2005:508 ) . 5.0 Competition The administrations growing and enlargement into new markets has increased the figure of rivals. The sector contains one or two extremely profitable big houses, a big figure of average houses and smaller administrations that are focused on the smaller mark audiences ( Kotler, P et al 2005 ) . Dell faces competition from three major companies worldwide, Hewlett Packard ( HP ) , IBM A ; Apple computing machines. Hewlett Packard came into being in 1939, and is a critical participant in the Personal computer market. Its strong presence can be felt world-wide, with its recent acquisition of Compaq it has about doubled in size. Before the entry of Dell to the market HP together with Compaq enjoyed the larger portion. IBM market portion place has remained relativity the stable. Apple computing machines have been hit by the economic conditions within their place state ( Hubbard, G. 2000 ) . Merchandise characteristics are easy replicated ; therefore it is the trade names that create the merchandise distinction. This distinction is based on merchandise features ; the combination of trade name name and trade name significance is the competitory plus in many contexts. Brands incite beliefs, evoke emotions and prompt behaviors. Kotler ( 2005 ) depicted the trade name as a name, term, symbol, or design ( or a combination of them ) which is intended to mean the goods or services of the marketer or groups of Sellerss and to distinguish them from those of the competitors ( Kotler, P et al 2005:275 ) . The trade name is portion of the merchandises or service touchable characteristics. The Dell administration runs one of the tightest fabrication and production operations in the industry. They turn over their stock list every 14 yearss on norm, compared to about 50 yearss for Compaq ; they are the most successful indirect Pc industries. Goldman Sachs, the investing bank, states that this alone gives Dell a 3 % cost advantage over Compaq, and twice that over more typical indirect shapers, whose stock list is frequently excessively many yearss ( Anonymous.The Economist Oct 5th 1996 ) . The lower costs scheme allows Dell to bear down the consumer lower monetary values ; this factor has helped increase domestic gross revenues in the UK, and reduced the opposition of the client when purchasing a Personal computer spiritual world. This is now turned an unmanageable factor into an governable factor of selling by the administration. Throughout 1995 and 1996 Dell has been turning at about 50 % a twelvemonth, this is in a market section that is merely turning by 20 % over the same period ( Anonymous.The Economist Oct 5Thursday1996 ) . Customers now are seeking lower monetary values and a direct relationship with the provider, there are traveling off from IBM and Compaq and toward Dell. A study from market research house Romtec in 1998 indicates that while IBM remains the provider of pick for 46 per centum of UK administrations, Dell is deriving popularity with users who buy on monetary value ( Fawcett, N 1998 ) . 6.0 Dell’s Current Strategy Dell does non stand still, although as antecedently discussed with their production methods they are highly adaptative to respond to alter, both within the markets and in engineering. To go on to keep its place within the UK and Europe, it is developing solutions to on traveling jobs in IT. While the company continued to spread out rapidly ( Hubbard, G. 2000 ) . One of Dell’s schemes is interrupting the administration up into strategic concern units. The cardinal component for carry throughing competitory advantage in an administration with a varied scope of operations is to split the full concern into strategic concern units. These operations are broken down into smaller sections or subdivisions, of the chief concern. This is in order to set up lucidity in the concern procedure, and to implement the scheme devised by the administration. Johnson and Scholes ( 2003 ) argue that the strategic concern units of an administration act as smaller sections of the full administration that operates to accomplish specific ends of the company in footings of the concern they are runing upon in order to accomplish the overall mission of the administration ( Johnson, G. and Scholes, K 2003 ) . The deployment of strategic concern units will non merely increase the ability of an administration coordinate its concern operations but besides increase its ability to react rapidly to the alterations in the market. Lynch ( 2003 ) further argues that the strategic concern units in instance of a planetary administration the strategic concern units non merely correspond to the concern operations of the administration but besides reflect upon the mark market since the geographics of the mark market histories for the demographic and cultural factors that account for the demand for the merchandises and services provided by the administration ( Lynch, R. 2003 ) . 7.0 Drawbacks The Dell administration, has in the yesteryear made some reasonably dearly-won errors, but through the organisation’s invention has been able to get the better of them. Dell experienced a series of reverses that hit net incomes hard. In 1990 the company began selling computing machines through retail shops, an attempt it abandoned in 1994. In 1991 Dell launched a line of notebook computing machines, but quality jobs and unequal production planning forced the company to halt selling them for a twelvemonth. Although they are non proactive to the market, dingle has the resource cognition to respond rapidly to market alterations ( Hubbard, G. 2000 ) . Quality jobs with portable systems were obvious, Dell in 1993 reorganised their portable division due to the uncertainness about their laptop line. The administration was in the procedure of doing selling determinations for its new laptop line. This was prompted due to the callback of 17,000 discontinued notebooks, at a big cost to the administration. Dell negotiated with Sony, for a battery for a new line of portables, which could perchance set Dell back into the portable market. Changeless reviewing of their market place allows Dell to rethink, and respond to debatable countries ( Hubbard, G. 2000 ) . 8.0 Decision Dell has become a successful participant in the Computer market, foremost through the vision and invention of the laminitis Michael Dell. The administration is built on a strong mission statements and clear values, portraying the civilization to all. Since Dell made the move on the UK market, it has become one of the most successful computing machine companies. This factor has helped Dell increase turnover and net income. The alone method of selling that dell introduced to the UK, was at first decelerate to derive a portion of the retail market, but successfully entered the corporate market. Recently with the take off of the cyberspace, consumers buy more goods unobserved, which has aided the growing of Dell in that sector. Dell has given consumer pick to the UK computing machine market. The major challenge to present their advanced merchandises and services to the UK market was non without jobs. One of the major unmanageable factors of their merchandise and services was the consumer’s reluctance to purchase goods unobserved. The administration overcame this by raising trade name consciousness, by selling their merchandises to corporate purchasers, whose determination to purchase was based on monetary value. They differentiate themselves on merchandise, monetary value and service giving the consumer value for money. The organisation footing of their scheme is the flexibleness they have built into their operations. The market topographic point is altering fast and as industry leader they should be proactive to alter, but their reactive scheme is working, with low stock degrees and high engineering, therefore they will go on to take the market, leting rivals to follow their moves. Bibliography Books Brassington, F A ; Pettitt, S ( 2003 ) ( 3rd Edition )Principles of Marketing Prentice Hall, Financial Times Publishing, UK Davis, J. A ; Devinney, T ( 1997 )The Essence of Corporate Strategy: Theory for Modern Decision Making, Allen A ; Unwin, St Leonards Groucutt, J. et Al ( 2004 )Marketing Essential Principals and New worlds Kogan A ; Page, Great Britain Hoover, W ( 2001 )Pull offing the Demand-supply Chain Value Innovations for Customer Satisfaction, John Wiley A ; Sons, Inc New York Hubbard, G. ( 2000 )Strategic direction: Thinking, analysis and action Prentice Hall, Hemmel Hempstead. Johnson, G A ; Scholes J ( 2004 ) ( 6th Edition )Researching Corporate Strategy Text and CasesPrentice Hall, Hemmel Hempstead Kotler, P et Al ( 2005 ) ( 4th European edition )Principles of selling Pearson, Prentice-Hall, London Lynch, R ( 2003 )Corporate Scheme Prentice Hall, Financial Times Publishing, UK Diaries ( Anonymous ) ( 2004 )All Change at the Helm The Inquirer, Thursday 4ThursdayMarch 2004 ( Anonymous ) ( 1996 )Selling Personal computers like bananas The Economist, London Vol.341 Oct 5Thursday1996 ( Anonymous ) ( 1991 )How Dell will pealing the bell ( Interview with Michael Dell, laminitis of Dell Computers Corp ) Management Today June 1991 Bird, J ( 1997 )Dell s direct attack ( Dell Computer Corp ) ( Company Profile ) Management Today, Feb 1997 Fawcett, N ( 1998) Users want inexpensive Personal computers and the personal touch Computer Weekly Sept 3rd1998 Rogers J ( 2003 )Dell launched its Professional Services arm in theUnited kingdomlast hebdomad( assuring 25 % nest eggs on monetary values offered by traditional service suppliers ) IT Management 25ThursdayNovember Spooner, J A ; Hallett, J ( 2004 )Dell robust in Q2 -Europebrightest star of all Management Today August 13Thursday2004 Internet Sites www.dell.com

Social Media Goals How to Set Them (And Crush Business Objectives)

Social Media Goals How to Set Them (And Crush Business Objectives) With all the time and money that your team invests into your social media marketing, wouldn’t it be nice to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that your strategy is working? You first need to set right social media goals to help drive progress toward real business objectives. Then, youll be able to show your organization (or your clients) that their investment in social media marketing is  paying off. In this blog post you’ll learn: How to create attainable S.M.A.R.T social media goals. How to find the data you need to measure progress toward your goals. How to organize and record the data to prove your efforts are on track. How To Set Social Media Goals To Crush Your Business ObjectivesBefore You Start, Download Your Social Media Goal Kit Weve put together two templates to make applying the advice in this post easy: S.M.A.R.T Goals Worksheet to map out your goals and KPIs. Social Media Metrics spreadsheet template to record your weekly, monthly or quarterly data all in one place. Download em both now, and then well move on. Determine Which Channels You’re Going To Focus On The first part of your goal-setting process involves determining which social media channels to focus your efforts on. How do you know what channels to choose? Some qualifications that you may way to think about include: Where do we have the most active social presence? Where do we see the most potential for growth? Where is our competition the most successful online? Using those questions you should be able to prioritize which are most important. Which social media channels is your brand focusing on?Create Your S.M.A.R.T Goals The second part of creating your social media goals involves creating goals that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-Bound. The goals that you create need to be able to have a numerical value attached to them in some shape or form. For example, let’s break down the S.M.A.R.T specifics of the following goal: I want to add 5,000 Facebook followers to my total count by the end of 2017. This goal statement is: Specific: I want to gain 5,000 Facebook followers. We know exactly what we need to do in order to mark this goal as done. Measurable: 5,000 followers is a measurable value Attainable: If my Facebook followers are at 0, gaining 5,000 followers within a short amount of time, is a bit of a long shot, however, if you have a longer period of time (6 months or more) 5,000 followers is more attainable. Relevant: Is Facebook a strong social media channel that is garnering a lot of website visits or audience interaction? Is it worth the team’s time to invest in getting those extra followers? Time-Bound: The goal of gaining 5,000 followers needs to be met by Q4 of 2017. Your team now has a deadline. Each goal that you create can be recorded in the social media goals kit that you downloaded earlier: But if you need some help brainstorming S.M.A.R.T goals that you’re team wants to reach, we’ve broken down a couple of common goals and how to find the data you need to track progress toward them. Here's how set achievable social media goals (and track your progress towards them)Which Social Media Marketing Goals Should I Focus On? These next set of goals are broken down into categories: Traffic, Conversion  Increases, and Brand Awareness.  Your team can decide which metrics and goals to create in order to best achieve your overall business goals. But what do these categories mean? Traffic: How many of your followers are going from your social channels to your website? Conversions: How often are you followers following through and completing a set action Brand Awareness: How many people are aware of your brand and interacting with you on social media? For example, if one of your overarching business goals is to increase your customer base by 50%, then it would make sense to create goals that will help drive your social media followers to your website, as that traffic contributes to increasing your overall customer base. Recommended Reading: How to Get More Social Media Followers With 30 Awesome Tips Drive Traffic To Your Website What does it mean to create goals that drive traffic to your website? Targeting metrics like: How many of my followers or visitors from my target social media sites are visiting my website? What landing pages are my followers going to from my social sites? How long are they staying on my website or what is my bounce rate? What is the overall traffic percentage coming from social? Tracking these metrics are a great way to figure out where the traffic from your social channels is ending up on your website. If you can figure out where your audience is going, you can see where they’re stopping in the purchase process or what’s driving them all the way to a sale. So let’s break down this first goal. How many of my followers or visitors from my target social media sites are visiting my website? The first thing you’re going to want to do is open Google Analytics. Tracking tools like Google Analytics will help you track your traffic as it moves from your social sites. If you don’t have Google Analytics set up yet, check out this article from MOZ  or the Google  help center  to get started. Open your Google Analytics account and select Acquisition: Under Acquisition,  click through  Social Overview: The next step will be to set the dates in the top right-hand corner  of your screen  and adjusting your date range: Then, you'll be able to see all your referral traffic per social media channel for your selected time period. By clicking into each social network, you can see your top landing pages for each one, too: The numbers next to your top sites are the number of sessions that have occurred from the social site and the percentage of overall session per channel. You can record those numbers in your metrics tracking sheet: Are website visitors sticking around? Calculating your bounce rate is a great way to see if the content that you’ve created on your web pages is causing your audience to stay on your site or bounce right off the page to another one. Finding data to calculate your bounce rate can be complicated so let’s walk through how to find the data you need. Open your Google Analytics and select Behavior: From Behavior select Site Content and then Landing Pages: Then right next to your sidebar in the middle of your page is an option labeled Primary Dimension. Next to Landing Page should be Other which if you click on it will pull up a drop-down menu: You’re going to want to change the Other by selecting Acquisition then Sources. This will allow you to see the bounce rate coming from your social media channels: Now to find your social media pages you may have to click through to find them all but your bounce rates should be listed among the other statistics in your feed: As you collect your bounce rate metrics you can record them in your metrics tracking worksheet: How much traffic is social media contributing to your website traffic overall?  The final metric that you’re going to learn how to track is the percentage of traffic that social is contributing to your overall website traffic. Open Google Analytics and select Acquisition, then Channels: In the list that is generated, there should be an option that says Social. This section will calculate all of the traffic that has come from your social media channels over a specific area of time: You can keep track of your overall traffic percentages in your metric tracking worksheet: Accurately Determine Your Conversions From Social Media Now that you’ve determined how to track your website traffic, let’s move on to how to track conversions from your social media pages. What do conversion metrics look like to your team? It could be answering the following question: How many signups or conversions are happening on our website? While these metrics seem impossible to track, you can find that data you need. It’s just going to take some time and a lot of effort. How many conversions are coming from the traffic from my social media channels?  We’re going to take another dive into Google Analytics. Go to your analytics home page and select Acquisition: From Acquisition select Social and then Conversions: From their you will be able to see your conversion numbers per channel and how many conversions have been generated per channel: Now you may not see a dollar amount for those conversions. Why? Because you need to assign a goal and amount to each conversion. This process can be a bit complicated. For each URL that you are tracking you need to assign a dollar value to that conversion. For example, if you have a thank you for purchasing x product page, every time that URL surfaced you would know that you sold a certain amount of money. The easiest way to set up these URLs is to create goals in your Google Analytics. This process is outlined in this post from the Google Analytics  help desk. Once you have your goals set up and your values assigned for those goals you can begin to record them in your metrics tracking sheet: Accurately Gauge Your Engagement The last set of metrics that you can track revolves around brand engagement and how your followers are interacting with you on your social media channels. Some questions that you may want to answer with your data include: What is our follower growth? How many people are we reaching on our target social channels? How many mentions, shares, and comments are we getting? Tracking metrics like these allow you to gain insight into how your audience is interacting with you and how you can interact and create connections with them. The great thing is that most of these metrics can be found all in one place on each social channel. Recommended Reading: 30 Social Media Engagement Tactics That Will Boost Shares And Conversions Facebook Find your current number of followers on your page: Track your follower growth over time by going to your insights  tab and clicking on followers: To find, reactions, comments, shares and the reach of your posts, go to your Insights tab and click on Posts: Keep track of the data you need in your metrics sheet: Recommended Reading: Facebook Marketing Strategy: Why You Need One (And How to Build It) Twitter To find your current followers, check the information section of your profile. To find your follower growth, select Analytics  and then Audience: To find data on your impressions, engagements and engagement rate, click tweets  in your analytics bar: To get an even deeper break down of your analytics per tweet, click View Tweet Activity: Record that data in your metrics tracking spreadsheet: Recommended Reading: 15 Tactics to Boost Twitter Engagement (Backed By Research) Instagram To find your followers, check the information section of your profile: To find your follower growth scroll down the Insights tab: To get the metrics on your reach, follower change, website clicks and more you can scroll through the Insights tab: To get even more insights per post, click see more  in the posts tab and click on the post you want to see more in-depth analytics on: Those metrics can be recorded in your metrics tracking sheet: Recommended Reading: Everything You Need to Know About Instagram Analytics (+4 Free Tools) LinkedIn To find your current follower count, click into the information section of your profile. (Like you’ve done with every other profile so far): To find follower growth click Manage Page and select Analytics: Scroll down to Followers: To find more information on your impressions, interactions, followers gained and clicks on post: Keep track of your metrics in your metrics tracking sheet: Pinterest To find your Pinterest followers click the information section of your profile. It’s important to note with Pinterest, there is no graph to track your followers. You’re going to need to track your followers through the information section of your Pinterest profile: To find information on your impressions, clicks, saves and pin type per pin: To find information on your impressions, clicks, saves, and number of pins per board: Track your metrics in the metrics tracking sheet: Recommended Reading: How to Improve Your Pinterest Engagement Tactics With These 15 Tips Google+ Google+ is a bit of a beast when it comes to tracking your brand engagement metrics because it’s difficult to know where to look for the data you need. Fortunately, our friends at Steady Demand created this detailed guide on Google+ analytics. Give it a read, and you’ll learn everything you need to know. And if you're tracking Google+ metrics, we left space for you to record them in our metrics tracking worksheet. Recommended Reading: What 20 Studies Say About the Best Times to Post on Social Media Setting Your Baseline: What's Your Standard Social Media Marketing Performance? Now that you know where your metrics are for each social channel and where to record them you can begin to develop your baseline. The baseline is the starting number that you will determine the growth rate of your goals. For example, if you had 1,000 Facebook followers and you wanted to grow that number by 25%, you would take 25% of 1,000 since that is your base number. The easiest way to do this is to track all of your social media metrics at the volume you’re going to record them at (daily, weekly, monthly) for the past six months. Let’s go back to our follower example. Say from June 2016 to January 2017 we saw the following increases in followers on a month by month basis: June: 200 July: 300 August: 500 September: 550 October: 625 December: 900 January: 1,000 You would then take the increases for each month, which are: 100 followers 200 followers 50 followers 75 followers 275 followers 100 followers And average out that number: 1000+200+50+75+275+100 / 6 = 133.33 So your baseline growth for those 6 months is 133.33 followers and your baseline is 1,000.