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Social media has become an essential part of a brand's marketing strategy. With over 4.14 billion active users on social media platforms, brands can no longer afford to ignore the power of social media to reach their target audience and drive conversions. However, having a presence on Tik Tok, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn without tracking your social media metrics will not help your business to grow much over the long run. When you understand how well your audience interacts with your brand through data and statistics, you will be able to evaluate your marketing strategy better, evaluate what works and make improvements where needed.
Why is tracking social media marketing metrics important?
Tracking social media metrics is crucial for businesses because it helps them understand the effectiveness of their social media efforts and make data-driven decisions to improve their strategies. From analyzing if a post garners engagement or if you are getting returns on your marketing investments, here are a few reasons why social media metrics tracking matters:
1. Aligns with business goals: By tracking specific metrics that align with your business goals, you can understand which aspects of your social media strategy are working well and where there is room for improvement. This allows you to make informed decisions about allocating resources and optimizing your social media efforts for maximum impact.
2. Improves ROI: When you track reach, impressions, engagement rate, and lead generation, you can understand the return on investment (ROI) of your social media efforts. This information can be used to optimize your budget and allocate resources more effectively, ensuring that your social media efforts are delivering the best possible results.
3. Provides valuable insights: Social media metrics provide valuable insights into your target audience, including their interests, behaviors, and engagement patterns. This information can be used to create more targeted and effective social media campaigns that resonate with your target audience.
4. Supports data-driven decision-making: You can make informed decisions about your social media strategy by tracking and analyzing social media metrics rather than relying on intuition or gut feelings.
5. Increases accountability: Businesses can hold themselves accountable for their social media efforts and track progress over time by tracking social media metrics. This helps to ensure that social media strategies are continuously evolving and improving.
Now that you understand why metrics are important, here are the top nine social media metrics you should monitor in 2023.
1. Engagement rate: This is one of the most important metrics to track because it measures the level of interaction between your brand and your followers. It’s calculated by dividing the number of likes, comments, shares, and other interactions by the number of followers or reach. A higher engagement rate means that your content is resonating with your audience and that your followers are more likely to be active on your page.
2. Click-through rate (CTR): This metric measures the number of clicks you get in your social media marketing campaign or advertisement, divided by the number of impressions or views it receives. CTR is used to determine the effectiveness of a social media ad in terms of how well it engages with its target audience. It is expressed as a percentage, with a higher CTR indicating higher engagement.
3. Conversion Rate: This measures the percentage of people who take a desired action after viewing or interacting with your social media marketing campaign or advertisement. This desired action can be a purchase, sign-up, download, or other action is deemed valuable to the business. The conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of clicks or impressions. It is used to assess the effectiveness of a social media marketing campaign in driving desired outcomes. However, it is important to note that conversion does not always turn into sales.
4. Cost per click (CPC): This measures the cost of each click on a social media ad. It is calculated by dividing the total cost of the ad campaign by the number of clicks received. CPC is an important metric for social media marketers, as it helps them determine the cost-effectiveness of their ad campaigns and whether they are getting a good return on investment. A high CPC can indicate that the ad is not effectively targeted or not well-received by the audience, while a low CPC can indicate that the ad is well-targeted and resonating with the audience.
5. Reach and impressions: Reach refers to the number of unique individuals who have seen your content, while impressions refer to the total number of times your content has been viewed. Tracking reach and impressions help you understand your content’s reach and its impact on your target audience.
6. Audience growth: Tracking your audience growth over time can give you valuable insights into the effectiveness of your social media strategy. It’s important to track your total number of followers and the rate your audience is growing. To me, audience growth in terms of likes and followers is not merely vanity metrics alone. It has an impact as it gives you a better understanding of how well your content resonates with your audience and how effectively you’re reaching new people. Nevertheless, producing quality content is important to retain your current audience and gain new ones!
7. Lead generation: Lead generation attracts and converts prospects into paying customers. Social media can be a powerful tool for lead generation, and tracking the number of leads generated through your social media efforts can give you valuable insights into the effectiveness of your strategy. Take note, though, that a lead does not necessarily convert. You will need time to convert a cold lead to a warm lead before enticing them to consider converting into a sales prospect.
8. User-generated content: User-generated content is any form of content created as a result of your relationships with your audience, such as reviews, testimonials, and comments. Tracking the engagement metrics of these UGC this type of content can give you valuable insights into what your audience is saying about your brand and help you understand their needs and preferences. You can measure the number of shares and forwards, and likes to see if your audience resonates with your content.
9. Return on ad spend (ROAS): ROAS measures the return on investment for your social media advertising efforts. It’s calculated by dividing the revenue generated from your social media advertising by the cost of the advertising. Tracking ROAS can give you valuable insights into the effectiveness of your advertising efforts and help you make informed decisions about your campaign.
There are, of course, other metrics that you can measure for your social marketing campaigns, but we believe these are some of the most basic yet important ones for you to know. If you found this useful, remember to share them with your team or on your platforms!