Social media is one of the most important facets of digital marketing but how do you know it’s working? Without a list of social media metrics you’re tracking, how do you know what you’re doing is actually providing value and ROI? If you don’t have a social media presence, you’ve likely already fallen behind your competition. It’s not just enough to have to be on social media, you need to have a fully developed strategy–and one of the most important elements of executing that strategy is analytics.
Engagement is important because it’s used to measure how well a piece of content is performing on social media. It also allows you to track how actively involved your audience is with the content you share. It’s pretty common to come across an account with thousands of followers, but a very low engagement rate; this lack of engagement shows that there is a lack of connection between the followers and what the brand is posting. digital marketing
Say you decide to share an educational post about your brand’s history and the engagement rate is higher than normal. You can use this information to determine that your brand’s audience likes educational posts and now you can adjust your content creation strategy to include more posts like these. digital marketing
If your brand started a campaign around a new product it just released, the engagement rate on these posts will determine how well the campaign is doing.
To calculate the engagement rate take the total number of interactions on a post and divide it by the number of followers you have. digital marketing
Interactions on each platform differ: Instagram actions include likes, comments, and saves while Facebook interactions are likes, comments, and shares.
The engagement rate also allows you to gain insight into what platforms your audience interacts with the most by looking at the engagement rate of similar posts on different social platforms.
The image to the right is a screenshot we took from an online engagement rate calculator. We like to use this calculator because it allows you to use a link to a specific post. You can see that our engagement rate is 6.19%.
Impressions:
Impressions measure your ability to get your content in front of your intended audience.
Have you ever been scrolling through your Instagram feed and came across the same post more than once? Or have you ever seen content on your Facebook feed by a publisher like BuzzFeed Food and then later you see it again because one of your friends shared it?
These are examples of how one person can count for multiple impressions. Sometimes I see the same promoted Free People ad 10 times on my Instagram feed. Each of these views counts as its own impression. Keep in mind that the viewer does not need to engage with the post for it to count as an impression.
Reach:
Reach measures how far your content spreads on social media.
By looking at your account activity you can see what actions your audience took after viewing your content. For example, say you run an Instagram account for a restaurant and post a picture of a delicious meal with a CTA (call to action) telling your audience to come in for dinner and then you see that from that post your profile had 10 visits. This shows you that this is the type of content your audience likes to see and the type of content that actually gets them to take action and come to your restaurant.
Account activity is also a great metric to be able to report on. Not only is your audience on social media, but they see your content and want to learn more about your products or services, and this interest can lead to conversions.
Shares are a great social media metric to track because it allows you to learn more about who your audience is and what type of content they respond to. If your audience is willing to share your content with their friends or followers that means they stand behind your brand and are willing to be brand advocates, which in the end creates brand loyalty. If your followers are sharing your content with their friends that creates brand awareness which is a large part of why we use social media for marketing. By looking into who is sharing your content, you can also learn more about who your audience is, which can help you readjust your marketing strategy if needed or confirm that you’re on track.
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2 Comments
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