When it comes to measuring social media’s success, it’s not always as easy as “This lead gen piece led to X leads, which led to Y customers.”

I say this because I hear this a lot. YES, social media CAN lead to sales. But, it’s not always easy to measure. When you think of marketing, you think of it like a funnel - top of the funnel - or awareness stage, middle of the funnel or consideration stage, and bottom of the funnel - conversion stage.

Here’s the deal - like any other marketing tactic, you set goals around it and be realistic about expectations.

Legit, if you’re not putting resources behind social media, or email, but expect it to deliver ALL the leads - you’ve gotta look at the bigger picture. How can social media deliver leads, if you’re driving them to your website but your website is garbage? You have to look at the total picture of your marketing efforts. Otherwise, you’re going to feel like you’re in a never-ending hamster wheel of marketing with no results to show.

Been there. Done that. So social media is just ONE piece of the bigger marketing puzzle, let’s look at how you can measure the effectiveness of those efforts!

Which Social Media Metrics Actually Matter?

With SO much data in marketing (thanks Google Analytics!), it’s easy to feel like you’re drowning in numbers and not knowing which numbers actually tell the story. Each platform has its own analytics (because of course) and while you can go dumpster diving into the world of analytics, Here are some metrics that matter for each stage of the marketing funnel:

Brand Awareness Metrics

• Reach - how many unique people are you reaching. Depending on the platform it could be the potential (based on follower count + the followers of anyone who shared the post). Similar to website traffic when you track the unique visitors, this is how many individuals see your content.

• Impressions - how many times a post shows up in someone’s timeline - so this is going to be higher than your reach, if your content is shared, or has high engagement your content could reach the same person multiple times which isn’t a bad thing considering most people need to see a brand 7 times before they take any action.

Engagement Metrics

• Likes

• Shares

• Saves

• Mentions

Engagement metrics - such as likes, shares, saves, mentions, etc… - basically show how much your audience appreciates and is engaged with your content. If your content is resonating with them, you’re going to see higher engagement. People who engage with your brand are more likely to convert, so take that into consideration. When you have a higher engagement rate, people find your content valuable. Keep going with what you’re doing there.

Conversion Metrics

• Referral Sources (Google Analytics)

• Profile views (Instagram/LinkedIn)

• Clicks (Facebook/Linkedin)

The ultimate goal of any marketing strategy is often more sales. More sales come after marketing converts visitors and followers - so how do you track that vis a vie social? How do you know if your social media is generating leads? Well, you can measure clicks - look at Google Analytics for traffic from social as a traffic source. If you’re not driving traffic to your website from social, what are you doing? For Instagram, I like to look at profile views as it shows general sentiment to your brand. Do your followers want to learn more about you? If you have a CRM, look at where your leads are coming from - you can pull leads that have social media as a source.

if you need help figuring out the impact of your social media efforts, or need a little support to better plan your content so you can see BETTER results, download our free content planning guide.