Three Social Media Metrics that Matter

One of my biggest pet peeves as a marketer, is when people measure social media success by their number of “likes.” 

One, that’s not even a thing anymore. 

Two, let’s call “likes” what they are - they’re your audience. 

Often times, business owners will worry about how many likes or fans they have thinking that that correlates with social media success. Newsflash, it doesn’t. 

While the audience certainly matters, it’s more about how they’re engaging with your content or interacting with it. Audience growth is great, but if they’re not converting or sharing your content - then they’re not really a great audience are they? A stand-up comic knows if her jokes are being laughed at, then she’s not really engaging or resonating with her audience right? So if your content isn’t being viewed (reach/impressions) or if your social audience isn’t converting to your website then, chances are, your social strategy probably isn’t very effective is it? 

So what does matter? Engagement. Conversions. Reach or Impressions. 

Why? Well let’s talk about them: 

Engagement 

Engagement measures how much your audience is interacting with your posts. Each network measures engagement differently - likes, retweets, comments, etc… High engagement shows how responsive your audience is to your content and general brand awareness. In order to measure successful engagement - think about your goals surrounding social media - what is your strategy? Do you want comments? A wider reach (meaning, shares)? Thinking about engagement in terms of how it aligns with your overall strategy is a better measurement.

Conversions

At some point, you want to look at the referrals. Take a look at Google Analytics and have an eye on your social media traffic. Make sure your social efforts are driving traffic to your website to give them the opportunity to convert. With a good CRM you can easily track the conversions by source and know where your leads/customers are coming from. This is especially important if you’re an e-commerce brand that has social media traffic a part of their marketing goals. 

Reach

Though often confused, reach and impressions are two different metrics and measure brand awareness.

• Impressions are measure how many times a post shows up in someone’s timeline

• Reach is the number of unique views a post could have.

Remember, a post can have high impressions but if the reach is low but impressions are high, the post probably didn’t resonate enough for the user to take action or share. So the two really should be measured in tandem to effectively measure brand awareness and brand sentiment. 

Overall, think about your social media strategy as an arm of your overall marketing strategy. Think about what you want to get from your social media efforts - brand awareness? Conversions? And set your strategy from there. Once you have your strategy, use the right tools (Buffer and Hootsuite are my two most recommended tools for social media management), and measure, measure, measure. 

Want help? Let’s chat about your goals and make sure you have a strategy in place that really adds value to your audience and is in line with your overall business goals.