Social media is used by food trucks to spread the word about their next location, increase brand loyalty, share new menu items, and even gain new customers. It seems as though every one of these mobile food business owners uses social media differently, some more successfully than others. But how do you know if you’re food truck is a social media success?

We’re glad you asked…today we share 18 different metrics for food truck vendors to tell if your mobile food business has become a social media success.

18 ways to tell if your food truck is a social media success:

Growth

  • You Gain Customers. Even if gaining new customers isn’t one of your main social media goals, at some point new people will come across your profiles and, hopefully, support your mobile food business.
  • Customers Seek You Out. In the early days of creating a social media account, you likely had to try very hard to find new connections and convince them that your food truck brand was worth following. If customers begin finding you without you needing to go through all this extra work, you’re well on your way to social media success.
  • You Accomplish Your Goals. Once you have a plan, you should see that you’re accomplishing what you set out to do, whether that’s increasing your food truck’s brand awareness, gaining website traffic or gaining valuable insights.
  • Your Network is Constantly Growing. Social media can turn into a numbers game for some food truck owners. But there is no magic number of followers or interactions that means your food brand has become a social media success. A better gauge is whether your network, both in terms of followers and interactions, grows steadily.
  • You Create Brand Advocates. If you do successfully maintain relationships on social media, you have probably created some brand advocates for your food truck business – those who continually share your links and recommend your truck to friends.  If this is the case, you’re inching closer towards social media success.

Engagement

  • Your Message Gets Across. Even if you have a sizable network, your social media campaigns are worth nothing if your customers don’t hear what you have to say. If customers acknowledge your message, or if you use tools like Facebook analytics to see that many of your connections actually viewed your posts, you’re on the right track towards social media success.
  • Followers Interact With You. A high follower count alone doesn’t necessarily make your food truck a success if none of your followers respond to your posts. A more accurate sign of success is whether you gain responses, likes, retweets and engaging interactions from your followers.
  • People Talk About You. This is related to the point above. But instead of followers talking directly to you, they are talking to their other connections about you. This could mean they’re recommending that others follow you or try one of your menu items that they recently purchased.
  • People Ask You Questions. Along those same lines, if your followers come to you with their questions, whether it’s just a general question about the food truck industry or more specific question about your schedule or food products, you’re headed towards social media success.
  • You Receive Suggestions. If your customers or others in your network come to you with ideas for new menu items or website features, it means they want to see you succeed and they think of you specifically when they have ideas related to your industry.
  • Customers Appreciate You. Not only should customers interact with you, but you should also be able to tell that they are happy with what you have to say. If they thank you for responses or recommend you to their own networks, you know they appreciate you and you’re heading towards social media success.

Content

  • You’ve Found a Good Balance. There are so many social networks and types of posts. You should be able to figure out which networks and which types of posts work best for you and your target audience.
  • Your Content Has a Clear Focus. You should be able to scroll through your timeline or your twitter feed and see how each post fits together and works towards accomplishing your company’s overall social media goals.
  • You’ve Tested Different Strategies. You can’t know if what you’re doing is right for you unless you’ve tried other things. You should have tested out different strategies at some point and know that your current one gets the best results.

Miscellaneous

  • You’ve Found a Way to Measure Impact. Whether it’s through services like Google Analytics or the built-in tools on many social media sites, you should have a way to quantify results so that you know you’re on the right track towards social media success.
  • You Don’t Spend All Day on Social Media. It might be tempting to use social media non-stop, especially if you’re constantly talking to customers. But you should be able to accomplish your goals without spending all day monitoring tweets or Facebook mentions.
  • You Maintain Relationships. More than just responding to individual messages, you should be using social media to actually keep in constant contact with your connections. And they should do the same with you.
  • Customers Treat You Like a Real Person. Social media users don’t want to follow companies. They want to follow people. If your followers treat your company like a friend, you’re likely running your account like that of a person, rather than a brand.

The Bottom Line

Of course, there are different levels of social media success. The key is to determine if you and your food truck have achieved at least some of the items mentioned above. If you have, you’re well on your way.

RELATED: Use ROI To Determine Social Media Success

Has your food truck reached social media success? Share any tips we may have missed in the comment section below or on social media. Facebook | Twitter