Social media metrics are an important part of managing any social media account. These metrics help you understand a range of important information, from follower counts and audience behaviour, to engagement rate and total impressions.
Here are the 5 most important social media metrics that you should know:
1. Engagement metrics
Engagement metrics are some of the most important metrics to focus on since they tell you how actively involved your audience is with your content. Essentially, engagement is focused on how many accounts are interacting with your page, and how often.
Common engagement metrics include:
- Likes, comments, retweets, etc. — individual engagement metrics that’ll often be reported as the total number of engagements per post or social media profile.
- Post engagement rate — the number of engagements divided by impressions or reach. A higher rate means that people who see the post are interested in it.
- Account mentions — organic mentions that aren’t a part of reply or tagging a brand in an Instagram story without prompting means that your account has gained effective brand awareness.
Reviewing one or more of these engagement metrics helps you understand what your audience responds to best.
2. Awareness metric
Awareness metrics centre on impressions and reach. Both are important factors to focus on, especially if your goal is to increase brand awareness.
Here is a general overview of the difference between the two:
Impressions: How many times a post shows up on a user’s timeline.
Reach: The potential unique viewers a post could have. Generally measured by your follower count plus accounts that shared the post’s follower counts.
Impressions and reach can help you understand the potential for visibility on your social media platforms. However, it’s also important to focus on understanding impressions, reach and engagement.
For example, if a post has a large impression count, but lower engagement, it can likely mean that your post wasn’t interesting enough for your audience to perform an action. Understanding this connection can help you create a more effective content strategy.
3. Share of voice
The share of voice metric is generally used for public relations. Since it’s usually used for competitive analysis and paid advertising campaigns, it’s a great metric to help you understand how much of the online space your brand is taking part in — especially in a particular location.
4. ROI
ROI (return on investment) is an essential social media metric that helps you understand referral traffic, conversions and sales.
Here is an overview of what referrals and conversions are:
Referrals: How a user lands on your website. For web analytics, you’ll see referrals from different sources. To track social media, you’ll likely be monitoring the “social” source.
Conversions: When an individual purchases something from your site, or fills in a lead form. And when a user visits a social media channel and purchases something during the same visit, it’s called a “social conversion.”
Another important concept for ROI is click-through rate, which measures the number of times your content is clicked versus the number of impressions you receive. Click-through rates can be measured through social media advertising campaigns where the user is prompted to click on a link to perform a specific action.
5. Customer service
Your customer service directly impacts your audience’s experiences and the reputation of your brand. That’s why it’s important to monitor your response rate metrics.
Knowing how fast you respond to comments, messages and inquiries can help you improve your strategy for customer service.
Social media metrics are an important part of effectively engaging with your audience and growing your brand. By understanding common metrics, you are in a better position to improve your social media strategy.
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