Some of my clients are small businesses. Does this mean they should not participate in social media?  Does it mean that return on investment (ROI) doesn’t matter? Of course not. I hear it all the time… “It’s not in my budget. My budget won’t allow that expenditure.”  If you want to measure your social media ROI, there are many tools you can use.

Some typical products used for Facebook, Twitter, blogs and websites are:

• BackTweets.com: BackTweets is a Twitter time machine which enables you to search through a tweet history for tweets that link back to your site. It doesn’t matter if the sharer tweeted your domain name or it was hidden in a tiny URL, BackTweets will be able to find it. This can come in handy when searching for people who love your product/service or who are out there complaining about it – you can immediately address those issues.
• Facebook Insights: Facebook Insights provides Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. By understanding and analyzing trends within user growth and demographics, content consumption, and content creation, page owners are better equipped to improve their business and create better Facebook experiences. Only page administrators can view Insights data for the business pages they own or administer.
• Icerocket.com: Icerocket works like a typical search engine – except it searches on Facebook, Twitter and blogging systems.
• Klout.com: Klout for Business is a set of tools designed to help you unlock the reach and power of your most influential audience members. By joining Klout, you will have access to free cross-network statistics, tracking and measuring your audience’s influence, and discovering moments and topics that matter most to your social media audience.
• Pinpuff.com : On Pinpuff you can measure “Pinfluence,” your popularity, influence and reach on Pinterest. It also decides monetary value of your pins and the traffic your pins generate.  It’s similar to Klout and offers perks for popularity.
• Pinterest Web Analytics:  Pinterest helps people collect and organize the things they love. It allows you to see what people are pinning from your website.

I haven’t used Pinterest yet, but I hear a lot of great stories about it. I think I will make that one of my work-weekend activities – to think of things I may want to “pin,” join Pinterest and start pinning.

What about you? Are you on Pinterest? Let me know so I can see what you’re pinning!