Business owners seeking outside help for social media say they are not sure whether they are seeing results from their efforts online. Mandy McEwen of Mod Girl Marketing shares eight tips for establishing a solid social media strategy to aid in holiday marketing campaigns.

San Diego, CA -- (SBWire) -- 12/02/2014 --Business owners understand the need to integrate Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and other social media sites into their online marketing plan, but often lack strategic goals and measurement systems, says Mandy McEwen, a social media marketing consultant at Mod Girl Marketing.

"The holidays are fast approaching, but it's not too late to put together a comprehensive social media strategy that gives you tangible results for your investment," she said.

Determining the proper audience is the first challenge business owners face. "People try to be everything to everyone, but a broad brush approach doesn't often work," Mandy adds.

Her company offers a competitive analysis that assesses what similar businesses are doing, identifies who is buying and why, and digs up the best keywords for marketing efforts to focus on.

"The average large company has 178 social media accounts," Mandy explains, pointing to research conducted by Hubspot. "That goes to show the importance of segmenting your audiences on social media sites, of speaking directly to particular interests and cutting out the clutter for your prospects."

Charting social media efficiency is another common issue faced by the business owners who come to Mod Girl Marketing for help. "People usually come to us with existing social media sites they've contributed to for years, but they have no metrics in place that tell them whether their fans are actually buying from them or not," says Mandy.

There are many different user-friendly tools available to help businesses gauge whether their campaigns are effective or not, from Google Analytics and built-in analytics for the social media sites themselves, to Raven Tools and Sprout Social. Best of all, marketers can change their marketing methods in real-time if sales aren't coming in as expected.

A recent blog post goes into greater detail about choosing an audience and setting up analytics. Business owners will also find six other steps to create a more effective social media strategy before the holidays. Whether a company chooses to do all their own marketing or outsource to a reputable firm like Mod Girl Marketing, more information can be found at www.8waysin8days.com.

About Mod Girl Marketing
Mod Girl Marketing is a full-service, boutique online marketing firm that provides effective search engine optimization, social media management, digital branding, marketing and design services to a variety of businesses. From coast to coast, Mod Girl Marketing has helped numerous businesses transform their digital presence from bland to brilliant. Contact Mod Girl Marketing at 800.388.7732 or by email at info@modgirlmarketing.com. Follow Mod Girl Marketing on Twitter for a fresh flow of Internet marketing ideas