Social media metrics, what are they and why are there so many?
Measuring success on social channels, isn’t quite as straightforward as counting how many likes or comments a post gets and tracking metrics can vary from client to client. They are important however, as they allow you to measure how well a certain post or campaign has performed and whether your social strategy is working. Ultimately, they help to gauge whether your social activities will have an impact on your overall business.
From follower counts to post engagement percentages, there are multiple ways to track social success, but how do you know which is right for you?
Engagement: Likes, Comments, Shares and Clicks
Engagement is the most common metric, highlighting how actively involved your audience is and how they interact with your content. Comments especially, can be useful, highlighting the direct opinions and feelings of your audience. Engagement will also allow for an insight into how responsive your audience is and what content works or doesn’t work for them. Despite it being helpful in showing you how and what content you might need to revise or do more of, engagement can be a difficult metric to measure the overall success of your strategy.
Awareness: Impressions and Reach
Impressions and reach are often mixed up, but they are an important metric to track, especially if your strategy is to increase brand awareness. Impressions are the number of times your post has been viewed, whereas reach is the total number of unique viewers. Both can tell you very different things about the performance of your content, and how many people are viewing it. In terms of measuring the success of growing brand awareness, both these metrics can come in handy, however if you want to see how your audience is reacting to your content, it’s better to look at engagement as well.
Return on Investment: Referrals and Conversions
For a lot of companies, this will be the most important way of measuring whether all that work on social has paid off. Referrals are how your audience lands on your website and whether it can be attributed to links from social media posts. Social conversions are when your audience buys something from your site as a direct result of clicking through to your website from a social platform. This metric allows you to see the direct impact your content has had on your audience.
At Torque, we always to encourage clients to take into account a mix of the metrics available, as this gives the whole picture and allows social teams to work out how content can influence different aspects of the business, from brand awareness to sales. Monitoring activity on a monthly basis, allows you to look back at past success and to refine content and goals on an ongoing basis. The appetite of audiences as well on social is constantly changing and staying one step ahead is vital to effective and meaningful conversation.
