If you have followed me for any amount of time, you know that Metrics are kinda my love language.
But they can be kind of confusing if you aren’t sure what to look for and why they are important. There is reach and engagement and followers and video views and so many more. And the names of the metrics can vary from channel to channel.
But don’t worry! I’ve totally got you!
I’m going to be walking you through the most basic metrics that every company should be paying attention to based on your goals.
What are social media metrics and why should you track them?
Social media metrics are important because it proves how successful a campaign is, how well your social media strategy is performing, and how your marketing impacts your overall business. Metrics also keep you aware of your brand and profile health. You won’t know if your profiles and brand are performing well until you have the data to back it up.
The important thing to note is that ALL metrics have meaning and the data can be vast. If you are looking to drive awareness, then you should be focused on impressions. If you are looking to build a community, what are your engagement rates? Should you be worried about the fluffier metrics (like followers)?
First, define your goals. Then, track the metrics.
How do I view my analytics?
Every social media platform has its own native analytics for you to dive into. You have to have a business page set up to view metrics on any platform. Facebook has the Insights tab. Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest have their own Insights sections too.
If you are just starting out, using the tools native Insights is a great place to start. You don’t need anything beyond that.
If you are more seasoned in reviewing analytics and somewhere to see all your metrics all in one place, we like Metricool. It displays the metrics we need to see in one easy-to-read report, that we can then analyze to see what’s working.
Whatever you use, the important thing is to monitor and track your progress. If you aren’t tracking, how do you know what goals you are accomplishing?
And do it consistently! Looking at your metrics should be part of your content planning process every single month. If you are more seasoned, you should be looking at your numbers every week and your video metrics 24 hours after going live.
Engagement: Likes, Comments, Shares, and Clicks
This is one of the most important metrics you should be tracking. It’s basically how much your audience is interacting with your posts and how often.
A lot of people think the most important metric is followers, but I consider followers to be a vanity metric. It’s great to increase this number, but followers aren’t what puts money in your pocket.
Yes, it tells others that you are popular, but it doesn’t exactly show your success. So is it important to track, yes? (You also get some additional features when you hit 10k followers, which is cool) But is it the most important one? No.
Every platform has a way to track engagement. It’s a total sum of the smaller metrics such as likes, comments, and shares.
There are a few things to watch for with your engagement rates though. If you have a post with a call to action and no one engages, try changing up the caption or the image. For some reason that post didn’t land with your audience, so tweak it and try it again.
On the contrary, if you have a post that doesn’t have a call to action, but gets a ton of engagement, try to figure out why. Was the graphic beautiful and timely? Was it a good quote but didn’t drive anywhere? What were your goals for the post?
When your engagement is increasing, it means that you are creating engaging content that people want to interact with, so create more of that.
Awareness: Impressions and Reach
These 2 metrics often get confused, but they are different.
Impressions are the number of times a post shows up in someone’s timeline. It actually has to show up in someone’s feed to count. A viewer doesn’t have to engage with a post in order for it to count as an impression. It’s also possible for one person to have multiple impressions for a single piece of content. So if shows 4x in someone’s feed, then it counts as 4 impressions.
Reach is the total number of people who may have seen your content. It’s the unique number of people who see your content. Ideally, every one of your followers would see everything you posted, but that’s not really how it works. Only about 5-10% of your followers actually see your posts. Keep that number in mind as you are reviewing your metrics.
If your reach is lower, but your engagement is higher, that’s okay. That means you are targeting the RIGHT people. And that is super important too.
Video Views & Retention
This is one that often gets overlooked but is important. This is how long people are actually watching your videos.
You are taking the time to create content and deliver your message via video, so you want to make sure people are actually watching your videos.
When you are looking at these metrics, notice when people stop watching. If it’s within the first few seconds, then change the way you start your videos or the content.
I hope this gives you a better understanding of the metrics that you should be tracking on social media. It really will make a difference.
Omnipresence to Ownership
Please note: The numbers are not all of the story. The metrics are just part of it. You still have to have that human connection with people. You still have to be engaging with them in groups, on posts, and in messenger. So remember that too as you are reviewing your numbers.
More important than the numbers are
- Is your presence consistently growing?
- Are you getting engagement (and is it improving each month)?
- is it driving somewhere?
Take time every single month to review your metrics.
One more thing, the cart is opening for the next round of Omnipresence to Ownership Group Training. The members in this group are amazing and have already had some incredible results. We have had people start showing up consistently on social media. Another signed a client within 24 hours of using the unique strategies she learned. Another, create a social media calendar, so she could start outsourcing.
We talk about step-by-step how to improve your metrics.
We talk about the latest and greatest strategies to propel you forward in your business RIGHT NOW. We talk about how you should be showing up for your tribe and how you can be successful in creating content.