5 Key Metrics to Know About Social Media

By Theresa Schempp

It is now 2019, and the importance and use of social media as a business strategy continues to have a steady increase. While creating social media platforms and posting on them is essential, it is only the first small step in truly making social media work for you and your business. What many businesses fail to understand are the metrics behind the post, which is crucial for growth. Just as a business wouldn’t spend money on a department without proven results, you should take the same approach towards social media.

While below we will lay out the basics of social media metrics, we are also offering a workshop that goes in-depth about how to optimize your business on social media for best results. Sign up here: https://www.nzconsultingsolutions.com/workshops/February

Engagement Rate

While many would think that your growth rate (how many followers you have) is the most important metric, engagement is found to generate more business success. Quality is better than quantity, and there is no point in having many followers if these followers don’t support your product or company. This is especially important for small to mid-size businesses to remember.

Engagement includes the number of likes a post receives, the number of people that share your content on their pages, and the number of profile visits your website receives. To keep these numbers high, you must not only post frequently, but engage with your audience. If someone comments, good or bad, be sure to respond. Consider a product giveaway or discount code for followers who share your content, giving them incentive to promote your business.

Growth Rate

Your growth on social media is the number of followers or number of likes your page receives. This can be seen in a simple chart showing either increase or decrease. To use this to your advantage, Facebook has a “People” tab which shows the gender, country, city, and language split of your followers. This allows you to see where your business has the most potential customers, and you can strategize how to portray your products to cater to much of your follow-base.  

Conversion

If you sell products on your social media, the conversion shows how many people visit your site compared to how many people become customers. This is essential to knowing more about your reach, and whether your posts are impactful or not.

Impressions

Impressions show the number of times your post was shown on someone’s feed. While it does not show the people who clicked on your site or post, it is important to keep this information in mind for how many potential clients you can strive to reach. The goal is to have your growth increase towards the number of impressions, which gives your company a higher chance of converting visitors into customers.

Competitor Pages

Facebook has a tab called “Pages to Watch”, which allows you to see the statistics of your competitor’s Facebook pages. It shows their page likes, growth from previous weeks, as well as engagement. This tool is an excellent way to know who you are competing with in your niche and allows you to look at your business from a competitor’s viewpoint. This simple but effective tool can help businesses understand an area on social media they are lacking in and optimize.

Sources:

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-metrics-that-matter/

https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/social-media-kpis

https://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/10/29/5-social-media-metrics-business-tracking/