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Nowadays, having a strong presence on social media is one of the essential components of success for any business. These platforms can reach and engage with customers, build relationships, drive brand awareness, and increase sales. But with countless brands vying for attention on social media, you need to measure the right social media KPIs (key performance indicators) to ensure your efforts are successful.
This article will teach you how including the metrics you need to track and some tools for measuring these.
Why Is Social Media Presence Important Today?
Not only should startups and small businesses have a social media page and keep active on it, but so should established brands.
Here’s why:
You Can Build Awareness
Social channels like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter offer an excellent opportunity to increase brand awareness, reach new users, and expand your customer base. Each social platform will have its own social media KPIs to focus on when measuring results. With more than 4 billion people actively using social media worldwide, it’s easier to tell them you exist without spending much money.
You can do this through a social media post, engaging content, or a well-placed advertisement.
You Can Increase Engagement
Interacting with customers on social media is a great way to build relationships and show that you are attentive to their needs. You can respond to their comments quickly and offer helpful advice. You can also ask them to provide feedback on your products or services, which can help you improve your offerings and make sure customers are happy with their purchases.
You Can Convert Followers Into Customers
Social media is an excellent tool for converting followers into customers. You can do this by promoting special offers and discounts for people who follow you on social media accounts.
You Can Build a Community
By taking the time to talk with customers and answer their questions, you can create an engaged community of followers who will be loyal to your brand. This is especially true if you offer exclusive discounts or content only available to members of your community on social media platforms.
You Can Connect with Your Social Media Audience Quickly and Easily
Social media lets you engage with your customers personally in real time. This enables you to build relationships, gain valuable insights into their behavior, and respond quickly to customer needs.
You Can Measure Engagement
Social media provides an invaluable opportunity to measure engagement with your target audience. By tracking key metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and impressions, you can better understand how people are interacting with your content and brand so that you can adjust your strategy accordingly.
What Are the Important Metrics to Track on Social Media and How to Measure Them?
Here are social media metrics to track and tips on measuring them:
Reach
Reach indicates the total number of social media users or people who have seen your post or advertisement. This is an important social media KPI because it indicates how many people have the potential to be influenced by your message.
To measure reach, use social media monitoring tools such as Keyhole, Mention, TweetReach, Brandwatch, etc.
Engagement
Engagement is a social media KPI that measures the number of interactions with your content or post, such as likes, comments, shares, etc. This lets you know how many people are engaging with your content and if they are taking action to support your brand.
Several tools are available to measure engagement on social media platforms, such as Simply Measured, Social Mention, and Sprout Social. You can also use native analytics tools from major social networks such as Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, and YouTube Analytics.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
This is the percentage of people who click on a link or ad from your social media posts. This can give you insight into whether or not your social media strategy effectively drives traffic to other websites or pages that contain more information about your products or services.
To measure CTR, use the native analytics tools you leverage from your social media platforms.
Conversion Rate
The conversion rate measures the percentage of people who converted from a visitor to a customer after viewing or engaging with your social media campaign. This helps you understand which platforms are most effective for driving sales so that you can focus on those channels for greater success.
It is typically calculated as the number of conversions divided by the total number of your landing page or website visits.
For example, if you received 20,000 website visitors from Facebook and 200 of them made a purchase, you would have a 2% rate. On average, a good landing page conversion rate is 2.35%. However, this varies across industries and platforms.
To measure conversion rates, use tools such as Google Analytics or funnel tracking platforms like Mixpanel to track conversions from each social media platform.
Follower Growth
Follower growth is an important social media KPI metric to track. This helps you understand if your content and engagement efforts are helping you build a more loyal following over time. This number can also give insight into whether or not people are interested in your brand and the content you share, so you can concentrate on creating content that resonates with them.
How to Set Social Media KPIs?
As mentioned, a social media KPI allows you to monitor the success of your social media efforts. To set effective KPIs for your business on these platforms, consider the following steps:
Establish Your Goals
Before you set KPIs, it’s essential to determine what you want to achieve with your campaigns. Ask yourself these questions:
- Are you trying to increase brand awareness?
- Generate more leads?
- Build customer relationships?
Knowing your end goal will help you decide which metrics are most suitable for tracking and ensure that your efforts are directed toward achieving that objective.
Analyze Your Existing Performance
Once you’ve established your goals, analyze your current social media performance. This will give you an idea of which metrics are working for you and what areas need improvement. It will also allow you to set realistic goals that can be achieved within a specific time frame.
Identify the Relevant Social Media KPIs
Once you know what you want to accomplish, it’s time to identify the relevant KPIs that can help track the success of your social media campaigns. Consider quantitative and qualitative KPIs such as reach, impressions, engagement rate, CTR, conversion rate, sentiment analysis, etc.
For example, if you want to track brand awareness, reach, and impressions would be the key metrics to focus on.
Set Benchmarks and Track Your Progress
Once you’ve identified the social media KPIs relevant to your goals, it’s important to set benchmarks so you can accurately measure how well (or not) your campaigns are performing. These benchmarks will vary depending on the type of KPI you’re measuring.
Conclusion
Tracking social media KPIs is essential for measuring the success of campaigns and helping companies identify areas where improvements can be made. By monitoring metrics, such as sales revenue, profit margin, revenue per client, customer retention rate, and customer satisfaction, companies can gain valuable insights into how their efforts impact their bottom line and adjust accordingly. With these data-driven insights, marketers can ensure they’re effectively leveraging the power of social media to maximize ROI.
Your Action Plan
- Review Your Social Media Goals: Align social media KPIs with specific business objectives. Reflect on their goals, whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or improving customer engagement.
- Audit Your Current Performance: Perform a comprehensive audit of their current social media performance. This should include analyzing reach, engagement, follower growth, and conversion rates using the tools mentioned in the article.
- Select Relevant Social Media KPIs: Based on the goals and audit findings, select the most relevant social media KPIs. Use of a mix of quantitative and qualitative metrics for a holistic view of performance.
- Set Specific Targets: Set specific, measurable targets for each KPI. Emphasize the importance of SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
- Regularly Monitor and Adjust: Continuously monitor and perform regular adjustments of strategies based on KPI performance. Encourage a routine schedule for reviewing metrics and adapting tactics accordingly.
- Engage and Learn Continuously: Actively engage with your audience and learn from both successes and failures. Stay updated with the latest social media trends and best practices.