Dinesh Agarwal August 23, 2021 We live in a hyper-connected digital world that is driven by data. And with so much emphasis on social media marketing, businesses have to gather meaningful insights related to their audience to be sure that their marketing efforts aren’t going in vain. You might be putting in great energy to curate the best content for your social profiles but if you are not tracking your results, it will be like rowing a boat without oars.
Let me say it – your social media profiles are not just for raising brand awareness. They are there for getting engagement, generating leads, increasing your website traffic, providing customer services, and getting conversions.
So how do you achieve all of this? By setting goals and tracking your results. Here are 11 important social media KPIs that you should measure on a regular basis:
1. Audience growth rate and follower count
Monitoring the follower count is no big feat. You can check those numbers straight up from your dashboard/profile. But, keeping an eye on the audience growth rate will give you an idea of the speed at which your followers are increasing. So, it’s actually not about how many followers you have, but how quickly they are growing.
To calculate your audience growth rate, divide the number of new followers for a particular month on a social platform by the total audience. Multiply this number by 100 and the number obtained will be the percentage of your audience growth. For Instagram, you can check this metric directly from the Insights section if you have a business account.
2. Reach and Impressions
Post reach is the total number of unique accounts that saw your post since it was uploaded, while impressions is the total number of times your post was viewed by people. The number of impressions is generally higher than the count of your followers and reach of the post, because one person can have multiple impressions for a single post.
Most of the social media platforms provide this data in the analytics section, including Instagram and Twitter. If you wish to calculate the reach percentage on your own, here is the formula: Post Reach = Post Views / Total followers × 100
3. Likes and comments
Likes and comments are a way of analyzing how much your audience liked your content. Even though platforms like Instagram and Facebook are giving the option to hide the like count, you can view your own metrics in the insights section. More likes are also a sign for the algorithms that your content deserves a spot in the explore pages.
Along with likes, comments are another important form of interaction that your content should receive. They are a good indicator of an engaging post and can help you strike up a conversation with your followers. Including a good caption and a CTA can attract more comments.
4. Shares
Lots of people tend to like maximum posts that show up on their feed. Shares, however, is a metric that shows that people genuinely liked your content, and they found it worthy to share it with their audience which helps to improve brand awareness online. It is a conscious decision made by your followers to invite others to check out your posts.
On Twitter, shares are basically retweets. On Pinterest, it’s a repin. And on Instagram and Facebook, the share icon can be used to send posts in DMs, stories, or feeds. If you have a high share count, it is also an indication of your post being viral.
5. Profile visits
All social media platforms don’t provide this metric. But if they offer, like Instagram, you should have a look at it. When someone’s learning about your brand and what you have to offer, they will visit your social media profiles, go to your website, sign up for newsletter, etc. The number of profile visits shows how many people have visited your feed to check out your content.
It indicates people’s interest in your brand beyond your latest post. If people are frequently making profile visits, it is a good sign to keep your profile always updated with your most important link destinations included in the bio.
6. Share of voice and brand mentions
Social share of voice (SSoV) is a metric that tracks the number of people who mentioned your brand on social media as compared to the number of people who mentioned your competitors. It shows how popular your brand is in the industry. The more your share your voice is, the greater your popularity on the social platform.
Using a social listening tool can let you know how many people are discussing your brand on a particular social network. It can help you find out any demands or complaints and make things better for your brand. You can also keep an eye on your competitors’ mentions to know if you are lacking anywhere.
7. Click-through rate
Click-through rate (CTR) will count the number of times people clicked on your call to action buttons or links when they viewed your post. This metric is an indicator of whether your content inspires your audience to take the desired action or not.
To improve your link clicks, don’t be afraid to share your linked content multiple times on the same social platform. Wherever appropriate, include clickable links, especially for getting engagement on Twitter. Highlight your CTA with an emoji or special text. You can also use Twitter cards so that when people share a link to your comment, your post’s image and title will be noticeable.
8. Cost per click
Cost per click is an important metric to calculate your return on investment when you are running ads on social media platforms. Paid campaigns are certainly worth your investment but it’s important to measure your success to optimize future promotions.
Through CPC, you will be able to know the amount that you are paying for each click received. It will enable you to determine whether you are getting a positive return on your ad investment. CPC can be calculated by dividing the total ad spend by the total measured clicks. The lower the CPC, the better.
9. Referral traffic
Social referral traffic is the number of people that visit your website by clicking a link on your social profiles. This is a significant metric to track as it shows the interested leads you’ve fostered. It is the traffic that will potentially convert into paying customers in the near future.
To track this, in Google Analytics, go to Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals. There you will be able to see a report stating traffic received from different social platforms. If you are not able to divert enough traffic to your website from social, modify the way you write your content and CTAs.
10. Leads generated
Before generating sales, you need to track the number of leads generated from your social sites. A successful lead can be counted as the contact information obtained from a qualified prospect through a social media post.
Whether someone signs up for your newsletter, fills out an inquiry form, or downloads your e-book – it indicates that they are interested in what you have to offer and would like to stay in touch with your brand. You can nurture these leads further to convert them into paying customers.
11. Direct and indirect conversions
No doubt, the end goal of putting all those efforts into social media marketing is to generate sales and grow your brand. Thus, apart from creating awareness and increasing followers, your social accounts have to bring in business. Through Google Analytics, you can measure your lead conversion rate.
Along with the direct sales, you should also consider indirect conversions, which might include downloads of e-book, newsletter signups, white-paper downloads, form fill-ups, etc. Generate a QR code for your website & integrate it within the post to get more traffic, which ultimately leads to more conversionThese actions can prove to be action triggers and convert into direct sales in the long run. Thus, if your business permits to do so, you can consider indirect conversions in your social media reports.
In a nutshell,
Tracking and measuring the impact of your social media marketing campaigns is imperative. In the beginning, you might struggle with choosing the right KPIs for your social media. Thus, to help you out, here’s a short run-through:
- Access the situation and understand what you want to measure, when, and how.
- Define your goals clearly as you won’t have the time to analyze each and every metric that comes your way.
- Select the metrics you need to measure your goals.
- Stay away from vanity metrics that don’t actually add value to your end goals.
- Once you’ve decided upon your KPIs, evaluate your efforts consistently and stay ahead of the competition.
Okay, it’s time to get started now!
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