If you read our previous article on Five Marketing Efforts to Measure you know that when it comes to Social Media, it’s more important to create engagement on the platforms than it is to simply just get clicks. But we also know from previous conversations that in order to create engagement, you have to truly know your audience.
In this article, we’re going to break down those key metrics that help us identify engagement, audience, and overall health of our social platforms.
Social Engagement Metrics
While the social platforms may have their own way of reporting, the metrics are similar across the board. Here are a few key insights that you would want to measure for engagement.
Engagement
This one is a “duh.” We like to look at engagement as a whole, as well as down to the individual posts, which we explain even more in the next metric…
Overall Reach
The more your posts engage, the farther they’ll reach. Looking at this metric on a monthly basis against the number of posts you have, the type of posts you have and the overall theme will help you gauge not only what works for your audience but also cyclical trends.
Video Views
Video rules and people want more of it. Beyond video views, look at how long people are watching. If posting in stories, consider how many people skip versus continue forward. How likely is it for someone to respond to an action (poll, link click, profile view) after a video? Understanding your video engagement helps you refine your messaging.
Profile Activity
This is particular to Facebook and Instagram where you can see what key actions people are taking whether it’s clicking on the website link, or calling you directly. See how your profile is driving leads.
Social Followers
Know thy audience, that’s what we always say. What do your followers look like and are they really your target market? If the answer to that question is no, how can you leverage those who are following you to reach more people who are more likely to do business?
Basic Demographics
Most of the platforms currently share basic demographics such as age and gender – although, don’t get too comfortable with this if further data privacy rules are enacted.
While we do have these metrics, however, we recommend just paying attention to age to take note of the generations you reach. How a Baby Boomer makes decisions will be different than a Gen X. And they each have different values, motivations as well as digital adoption.
Understanding generational attributes will help you align your message and content strategy for a deeper connection.
Industry and Role
LinkedIn is a wealth of information that can be used to craft a better message and target more effectively. By looking at your visitor data you can see what the typical job roles, functions and industries are for your followers.
Location
Especially if your business is across multiple regions, it’s important to look at location to see where most of your community is. If you’re based in California and notice most of your followers are in your backyard, take a look at your post content and see how you can create content that expands beyond your immediate audience.
Social Platform Growth
Where do you need to step up your efforts and where are you coasting? In addition to engagement, looking at your follow growth and reach will help you understand how to modify content and set benchmarks.
Follower Growth
This gives you an idea of what your monthly growth looks like and whether you’re hitting benchmarks. On platforms like Facebook, you should also look at growth against organic and paid. If you’re always paying for your audience, you might not really be engaging them at all.
Total Impressions
Unlike Reach, which is the total number of people who see your content, impressions are the number of people who had the opportunity to see your content. This is your opportunity metric. If you’re seeing that you have a big gap between Impressions and Reach, then consider how you’re choosing to engage your audience. The more questions you ask, conversations you start or strong calls to action you offer the better you’ll be at decreasing the jump.
Next Step: Brainstorm
Typically, when we think about reviewing metrics we think that we should be looking for ways to increase performance. And yes, that should be a goal, but you will have a greater opportunity to identify ways to improve if you open your mind to brainstorming.
Rather than looking at poor engagement metrics and thinking, “Welp, that just didn’t work,” take a moment to dissect and ask, “What could be changed?” Maybe your message doesn’t actually fit your target market? Maybe you used an infographic, could you try an image that features real people instead?
When you get into the habit of reviewing your engagement metrics and open your mindset to improvement, you’ll be surprised by how many ideas you can generate.
If you’re ready to get started reviewing your social media metrics monthly, but unsure of where to start – reach out. We’d love to help.