Tuesday, March 20, 2012 | 6:55 AM

As we discuss Google Analytics in class, I began thinking how one actually analyzes the value of social media to their marketing campaign. Measuring the value of social media has proven a challenge for many business owners and marketers for quite some time, especially because activity is taken place both on and off their website.

As the social media industry continues to develop at a fast pace, there is a strong demand for analysts to get their hands on reports that can tell them how effective these channels are. I’ve always thought that its only the brand websites not the social networking sites which are driving buying decisions which can be tract as conversions.

I found an article published on Google Analytics that introduces a new set of social reports within the Google Analytics tool. The new tool is a nice connection between social media and the metrics that every marketer cares about. It allows you to:

• Identify the traffic drawn from social sites and a direct lead to conversions.
• Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site which helps increase social KPI’s.
• Make smarter data-driven decision in your social media marketing campaign.

Here are a couple of the things you can do with the new reports:

Overview Report: Allows you to see at a macro level how much conversion value is generated from your social channels. The social value pictured compares the number and monetary value of all your goal completions against those that resulted from social referrals.

Conversion Report: Now marketers can measure the value of each individual social channel by seeing each channels conversion rates and the dollar value they drive for you business.