Are you looking to launch a new business? Are you planning to take your brand to the next level? Then social media is one of the most powerful tools you need in your digital marketing. Statistics reveal that the internet has over 4.5 billion users worldwide. Moreover, around 3.8 billion people are on social media. And with the health crisis affecting the world, social media engagement saw a notable increase. Thus, you need to take advantage of your social media platforms. And for any campaign to succeed, tracking social media metrics is a must. But what exactly are these metrics that you need to stay on top of? Continue reading below for the top social media metrics to track and how to measure them.
1. Social Media Reach
One of the first key metrics you need to measure is your social media reach. This pertains to the number of people looking at your brand’s social media accounts. This metric is the most important as it serves as an anchor for other metrics we will discuss later on.
Social media reach says a lot about the strength of your brand awareness. If your reach is stagnant, it means you’re not reaching enough people.
To measure this, there are key areas you need to track. These include your follower growth, as well as your overall campaign reach. You also need to track your audience’s growth rate and your individual post reach.
When it comes to reach, it is what you will use to amplify your message. To calculate your social media reach, you need to check three things. Track your organic reach, viral reach, and paid reach.
Organic reach involves the number of people who saw your post in their social media feeds. For example, organic reach counts how many people saw your tweet upon checking their feed.
Unfortunately, measuring organic reach became tougher nowadays. This is because certain algorithms now prioritize posts that followers, friends, and families shared.
Meanwhile, viral reach pertains to the number of people who saw your post via social sharing. As for paid reach, it measures the number of people who saw your content via a promoted social post.
2. Engagement Reach
This is the metric that tells you how many users interact with your social media content. Engagement reach comes in different forms. It can be the number of shares or the comments your posts receive.
It can also be the number of saves or clicks.
Engagement is critical as your “follow-through” after establishing a solid social media reach. Even if you have an extensive reach, you need to see engagement with your content. If your engagement is low, it means your posts may not be effective.
It means your target audience is showing little interest in what you are posting on social media. Hence, tracking engagement reach allows you to tweak your content.
Measuring engagement rate involves looking at your ads’ data, depending on which social media platform you posted them. Look at the data and run a test thereafter.
If a particular ad gives you low engagement, tweak or replace it with a new one.
3. Brand Awareness
When it comes to brand awareness, it is the metric that tells you how much attention your brand is getting on social media for a particular period.
Brand awareness is crucial in the growth of a business as it impacts consumers’ buying habits.
It is what complements your brand development strategies. You can measure brand awareness in many ways.
There are social media mentions, impressions, links, and shares.
As for the reporting periods, they vary depending on your preferences. You can set the reporting on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis.
Measuring the volume of mentions allows you to identify how consumer interest changes. You will see which months it is easier to connect with customers.
Moreover, you will see the months where demand for some of your products spike. Also, you can tell which days or times of the day engagements are high. In turn, you can adjust your posting schedule according to the data.
To track brand awareness, determine the metrics you wish to tie to your brand awareness. It can be the links, impressions, or social media mentions. Next, determine the reporting period that you want.
From there, use a reputable brand monitoring tool to track these attention metrics. The key to tracking is consistency. This will ensure the accuracy of your data.
4. Brand Sentiment
Measuring brand awareness is only one part of a bigger pie. Another one is brand sentiment. Measuring this metric means understanding what the public thinks about your brand online.
Brand sentiment analysis involves assigning a positive, negative, and neutral sentiment for every post that you make on Facebook, Twitter, and any other social media platform.
It is common for most companies to track negative sentiments. If your posts get a lot of unflattering mentions, you better look into your users’ issues.
But this doesn’t mean you should neglect the positive sentiments. These sentiments offer an opportunity to build stronger relationships with happy customers. Through these, you can create new promos that will encourage them to share your content.
As for the neutral sentiments, you can use them to explore what prospective customers are looking for. You can use the data to explore what possibly makes them look at your competitors.
Neutral sentiments give you a better perspective on how people are accepting your brand. It gives you an idea about how they wish you can further improve on.
5. Social Media Referrals
Another key metric is the social media referrals. This covers the traffic of users who visit your website using social media. For example, when a user clicks a link that redirects them to your website, that counts as one referral visit.
Though building a massive number of followers on Facebook or Twitter is great, it should not be your end goal for digital marketing. At the end of the day, you still want everyone to visit your company website.
It’s on your website where people can get all the information they need about your brand. Your site is where you list all your products. It is where they can learn about your offerings and how to use them.
This is where they can engage in an online transaction. This is where you complete your online sale.
You can measure this particular metric by using Google Analytics. Head on to “Acquisitions,” then hit “Social.” From there, you will see the different networks that are bringing traffic to your site.
Moreover, you will see how much traffic these networks are taking to your website.
One way of separating organic referrals from paid referrals is by applying UTM parameters on your social links. This will help you determine the campaigns that generate the most traffic.
6. The CTR
We mentioned earlier that monitoring the number of clicks says a lot about how your customer engagement is doing. You can also use this to see how effective your content is in driving traffic to your site. Thus, you need to monitor the click-through-rate (CTR) of your ads and other content.
Tracking your CTR counts because it gives you an upfront idea if the users show interest in your social media ads or not. Though this is one of the key metrics to determine the efficacy of your content, it also tells you if you’re losing on your ad costs.
Keep in mind that social media platforms favor ads that generate high CTRs. The higher your CTRs, the more impressions they get. In turn, your ads will get better placements and lower costs per click.
To track this metric, you need to divide the number of clicks by the number of impressions. Once you get the answer, you multiply it by 100.
Thankfully, computing for the CTR is now a breeze. Most, if not all, social media platforms offer automatic calculations of the CTRs of your ads. If you’re using Facebook Ads, hit the “Ads” tab, then choose the “Performance and Clicks” column view.
And if you’ve got an extra budget, you can hire a digital marketing company that specializes in pay-per-click (PPC) management.
7. The Bounce Rate
If there is one metric that you wish to keep at a minimum, the bounce rate is one of them. The bounce rate is the metric that measures how many people check your landing page or website then leave immediately without taking any action.
When analyzing bounce rates, there are many possible reasons why the visitors “bounced.” Sometimes, users accidentally click the wrong button, forcing them to leave your page.
However, if much of your traffic comes from your social media posts, and if your bounce rates are high, then that is a cause for concern. This means your customers do not see what they want in your ads and posts.
It means that your site is not giving enough value to your users. If so, then your visitors will likely stick around your site. They will explore its different sections and learn more about your products and services.
Google Analytics is the key to measuring your bounce rate. Go to “Acquisitions,” then click “All Traffic.” Thereafter, segment by Channels until the “Bounce Rate” column appears.
From there, you can sort the bounce rates of your channels from highest to lowest.
8. Conversion Rate
In simple terms, conversion rate measures the number of visitors who take action on your page after clicking your social media post. And by “action,” we mean buying your product, subscribing to your newsletter, or downloading content, among others.
A high conversion rate means your ads give much value to your customers. Hence, conversion rates have a direct impact on your company’s return on investment (ROI).
You can measure your conversions depending on where you published your post. On Facebook, Facebook Pixel is the tool to use. On the other hand, Twitter also comes with its own conversion tracking tool.
9. Cost Per Conversion
The cost per conversion pertains to how much you spend to secure a conversion. These costs enter the picture once you compute the costs of the individual ad clicks.
For example, if you’re spending $0.20 for each ad click, then you take 200 clicks before you hit your first conversion, then your actual cost per conversion will be $20.
Like your conversion rate, the cost per conversion directly affects your ROI. If you’re selling a $15 product on Facebook, but your cost per conversion is $20, then you’re not making money.
10. Share of Voice
This metric compares how many people talk about your brand on social media with conversations about your direct competitors. The mentions can be direct or indirect.
The good thing about tracking share of voice is that you can monitor not only yours but also your competitors.’ This is possible since most of these conversations are public.
To measure your share of voice, collect all the mentions your brand receives on social media. Do the same thing with the mentions for your competitors. Make sure you’re comparing in the same reporting period.
Add your mentions and your competitors’ to get the total. Thereafter, divide your brand mentions by the total. Multiply the result by 100 to get your share of voice.
11. Revenue
Last but not least, you need to track the revenue that you get from your social channels. Among all the social media metrics, this is the one that most companies pay close attention to. This is because it involves your bottom line.
To compute your revenue, Google Analytics is again, your best friend. The tool allows you to set goals for your website for every conversion point. The key is to assign a dollar value for each conversion.
Go Beyond Social Media Metrics
Tracking social media metrics is paramount for any company. With proper metrics tracking, you can make key adjustments and make better strategies. But if you already have too much on your plate, then we can extend a helping hand.
We offer comprehensive digital marketing solutions for businesses. We formulate social media marketing strategies and create content for your site. Schedule a free consultation, and let’s discuss your options today!
