Get your ultimate social media bundle!
Are you a victim of social media overload?
Download my free bundle of interactive social media checklists and best practices.
Awesome, your social media channels are getting thousands of likes and you’ve heaps of followers. You must be doing something right. No?
What about newsletter sign-ups? Free demos? Sales? Sentiment? Not so good?
While measuring your vanity metrics can give you a buzz, they don’t always bring tangible value to your brand. But, with so many metrics, and new ones appearing regularly, which ones are critical? Which should you be tracking?
I've pulled out 20 social media metrics that are crucial to your business, along with how to track them, and the tools you'll need.
Talkwalker Analytics - social media metrics tool to track and visualize social data.
Identifying the metrics that matter will help you improve your social media marketing strategy. You’ll learn how many followers you have...
My social media metrics guide will walk you through the 20 metrics that matter. What they are. Those crucial to your business. How to find them, and what the results mean.
Using social media analytics software, social data is used to measure the impact of your presence on social media, and the revenue it brings to your business.
The social data reveals how your brand is perceived by consumers. What they’re saying about your products. Audience sentiment - positive, neutral, negative. How they talk about you in relation to your competitors.
Measuring sentiment around fizzy pop brands, with Talkwalker Analytics.
Depending on which metrics you choose to measure, you’ll also discover click through rates, time spent on website pages, bounce rate, content shares, and more
Your social media goals are what you use to determine your metrics. Each goal should have a metric. This will help you identify if your social media strategies are working or not.
For instance… you’re looking to increase conversions. This means your social media goal is to increase conversions from consumers visiting your website, via a social post. Now you know which social media metrics to measure - social traffic and conversion rate of the social posts.
Don’t forget to determine a time frame. There has to be a beginning and an end.
Social media goal examples…
Defining social media goals will ensure your efforts don’t go to waste. That you’re working towards potential success. Having already created your social strategy - your roadmap - your goals are your journey’s end. Setting your goals will...
Make sure your goals are SMART…
SMART goals - specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, timely.
Examples...
Monitor your social media metrics to prove the value of your hard work.
When your boss asks you how your social marketing is performing. The consumer insights you’ve identified. The traffic increase. The conversions. Don’t tell them that you’ve won more followers. Your last post got lots and lots of likes and retweets. Highlight the big stuff. The results that prove that what you’re doing is awesome. Data-driven marketing, bringing more traffic, leads, conversions, sales.
Download How to Create Your Social Media Report. Including simulated reporting templates, this guide shows you how to share your results with the c-suite. To knock their socks off!
Talkwalker Analytics automated reporting tool.
All the social media networks have inbuilt analytics, free to use. Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, etc. Some require business accounts - Instagram, Pinterest - for you to access your social data. While useful, and free, you can only dig so deep.
Using a social media analytics tool, allows you to pull from multiple sources. Yes, they can be costly. But, the time saved on accessing each tool, creating reports, amalgamating all the different channels’ data - it’s gonna balance.
Okay, let’s get started on the social media metrics. Broken down into content, audience, social listening, competitors, and branding, each includes further metrics with detailed descriptions of what and how to track...
Analyze the content you share on your social media accounts to find what’s working and what’s failing.
How many posts are you sharing with video? Do GIFs work for you? Photos or graphics for your tweets? All your own content, or do you share industry posts from influencers, etc.?
For each of your social media channels, track...
Ensure your goals are SMART. It’s easy to say that you want to increase engagement on Twitter, but how will you measure your success?
For what time period?
Increase engagement by how much?
SMART goals will determine your social media metrics.
If you achieve one of your goals, you can set new ones, with higher targets. If you failed to reach a goal, ask yourself why? Missed your deadline? Targets too high? Wrong social channel? Content not relevant to targeted audience?
When do you post? Time of day? Days? When do your followers engage most?
Answer these questions, and you’ll determine the best time and day to post. You’ll understand what content resonates with your audience. Trending topics. Industry news. Quizzes. ‘How to’ posts.
For each of your social media channels, track…
Looking for a social media scheduling calendar? Look no further! Download Dan's Best time to post on social template. Gonna save you so much time.
How many people could see your post? This would be if a follower shared your post with their community. If this was the case, a possible 5% of their followers would contribute to your potential reach.
This metric is an effective way to measure your progress. Here’s how to measure it…
--- total of mentions x followers of accounts that mentioned you = potential reach ---
How many people have seen your post since it went live? Good results will prove you’re posting relevant content, at a time when your audience is online.
How to track post reach…
--- post reach ÷ total followers x 100 = post reach % ---
The numbers you pull, demonstrate how people are interacting with your content. While these are important, if you’re looking to increase traffic surrounding your social media content, they only offer an overview.
For each of your social media channels, track…
Engagement metrics can be found on each social channel in the inbuilt analytics. It can be a slow process, so you could use your scheduling tool. Hootsuite, for instance.
Likes, shares, comments. The higher the number, the better your content is talking to your audience. To prove this, you need to track the engagement rate of each post. Engagement rate relates to the number of followers you have. Here’s how to track…
--- likes, shares, comments ÷ total followers x 100 = avg engagement rate % ---
Nice tweet. I’ll click the link. I arrive on the website and I read…
My next action depends on quality.... of the content, the look of the website, navigation, loading time....
1. If the content is boring, irrelevant, inaccurate, misleading, I’ll click back to social
2. An ugly website, slow to load, hard to navigate, and I’m out of there
3. An interesting read - matching the tweet - I’ll move to another page and read more, and more
1 and 2 will leave you with a high bounce rate from social traffic. Meaning users were interested in your social post, but on clicking the link, the site didn’t deliver. So they vamoosed.
You’re looking to get a number 3.
You should measure your social media traffic bounce rate against other sources of traffic, e.g., email, organic, paid ads, etc. If your social bounce rate is lower than other channels, it means your social campaigns are hitting their target. You’re talking to the right audience and driving credible traffic.
Google Analytics is the tool for measuring bounce rate. Acquisitions > All Traffic, segment by social channel.
Google Analytics - Aquisitions > All Traffic > Channels.
Google Analytics - measuring social media metrics - bounce rate.
Lowering your bounce rate, is your goal. Make sure that your social posts don’t offer empty promises.
Is your audience commenting on your social content? Tracking how much conversation your posts inspire, will prove that you’ve found the right tone of voice and topics.
Track the rate of comments per post, in relation to the number of followers. 30 comments per post, when you only have 250 followers, is awesome. 30 comments per post, if you’re Cristiano Ronaldo, is embarrassing.
How to track…
--- comments ÷ followers x 100 = conversation % ---
You need full visibility of all your social campaigns, owned and paid. Tracking in real-time, means that all your media data makes it easier to optimize your performance and prove your ROI.Our new feature - Paid Social - combines your owned, earned and paid media data into a single dashboard. Reporting is centralized and automated, KPIs are streamlined.
Paid Social gives you real-time access to your paid ads' data, so you can update content that's underperforming.
Your Paid Social campaign dashboard will identify organic content that’s performing well. Meaning you can repurpose and create paid ads for your social channels.
Your social campaign dashboard helps you identify the most engaging messages and optimize your ad spend.
With all your social data stored in one place, automated campaign reporting becomes a walk in the park.
Fast, accurate, automated reporting with Paid Social.
Paid Social uses sentiment analysis - in 90+ languages - to find negative comments. Set up alerts,, so you can quickly manage potential issues.
Quickly find negative comments in your ads, so you can tackle issues immediately.
Is your audience aligned with your content? I mean, are you attracting the audience you want?
Your customer base is 80% male, 30 - 45, living in Europe.
But, on Twitter, your followers are predominantly male, 45 - 55, living in the US. On Facebook, it’s 50/50 female, global.
This indicates that the content you’re sharing on social media, is attracting the ‘wrong’ people. Could be bots, which are a total waste of time. Could be people that are highly unlikely to buy your products.
Monitor and analyze your audience data to ensure your follower base matches your customer base. Target your content so that you attract followers, likely to sign up.
For each of your social media channels, track…
Getting more followers is great, isn’t it? You get a buzz, when you see your follower count going through the roof. Who doesn’t?
Use Quick Search to dig deep into your audience demographic, for all your social channels. You’ll be looking at...
Then pull out users that...
With the results of your audience metrics, you’ll be able to
Quick Search - measure your audience metrics.
If you’re looking to go even further, and pull out social data from your audience, check out my Consumer Intelligence Guide.
Listen to the voice of the customer… ignore them at your peril.
Measure how many followers you’re gaining, month on month. The results will show whether your content is resonating with people, or not. If you’re posting enough content.
How to track follower growth…
Measure your new followers on each platform, per month
Divide your new followers by your total number of followers, on each platform
Multiply by 100 to find your follower growth rate percentage
Looking to measure an individual social media post, adjust your timing to a shorter period, before and after.
How much do customers love you?
Your customer loyalty metric - flashy name being, Net Promoter Score® (NPS) - measures customers’ satisfaction with your brand. For full customer intelligence, integrate this customer metric with all your brand data.
The NPS calculation derives from a single question posed to customers...
“How likely is it that you would recommend our company/product/service to a friend or colleague?”
Scores out of 10, please.
--- promoters - detractors ÷ respondents x 100 = NPS ---
Read about NPS - Net Promoter Score Guide - Dan shares the calculations involved.
I’m talking testimonials, comments, interviews, influencer recommendations, reviews, endorsements that support and praise your brand. We’re talking user-generated content, and you know what that is… free advertising.
“90% of consumers say that user-generated content influences their purchasing decisions.”
Yep.
Share positive customer testimonials on social media and you’ll increase trust, credibility, and brand awareness. Oh, and sales.
How to turn consumers into brand ambassadors…
Amazon using social proof to increase trust, credibility, and brand awareness.
Want to see how brands are winning at exploiting UGC? Take a look at my guide - How to get the most out of user-generated content - that explains how to create a UGC campaign, along with best practices.
This is a biggie. And I mean, a BIGGIE!
So big that we have a Social Media Listening Guide. It's packed with details on how to perform a social listening audit, and the tools you'll need. Check it out!
Use social listening to dig deep into your social media data, and you’ll identify what consumers are saying about your brand. What they’re feeling. The sentiment of conversations - positive, neutral, negative.
Monitor online chatter, and you’ll learn how to respond. Address a complaint. Apologize for a mistake. Post a thank you for a positive comment. Jump into conversations about your industry.
How are users behaving with your social media messages? Monitor what’s happening when a user clicks the link in your social post, and visits your website. Do they go to other pages, or bounce back to the social post? Do they respond to your CTA - subscribe, download?
Find the answers to these questions, and you can better target your social content. For each of your social media channels, track…
Google Analytcs - social media metrics tool for tracking and analyzing web traffic.
Using a social media analytics tool, track…
Tool suggestion? Talkwalker. Obvs!
Integrated with Google Analytics - all the businesss impact metrics you need to measure your social media ROI...
Google Analytics and social data integration for measuring social media ROI.
Measure how many people are talking about you and your brand on social media, compared to your competitors. Mentions include…
SOV is part of your competitor analysis strategy. It determines how visible your brand is. How relevant in your industry.
Talkwalker Analytics - social media metrics- share of voice.
Simulated social media report template.
How to track your share of voice on social…
Use a social media analytics tool for this process. It’ll be a whole lot easier and quicker.
--- your mentions + competitors’ ÷ total mentions x 100 = SOV ---
Remember the #ShareACoke campaign? Coca-Cola rocked product personalization when it replaced its logo on bottles with popular names. Then asked consumers to share a photo of their personalized bottles on social media, with the campaign hashtag - #ShareACoke. The brand reaped a fine harvest of positive user-generated content.
Not only did sales go through the roof - a 10 year decline in sales was reversed, 25M Facebook followers gained, 500,000+ photos shared - sentiment reached an all time high.
Social media metric analysis with Quick Search - #ShareACoke campaign from Coca-Cola.
I’m not talking about copying your competitors.
Much.
It’s a case of checking out what they’re doing. What’s working for them. What they’re doing that’s working, that you’re missing out on. Use what you find to inspire campaigns.
Competitor analysis template for Coca-Cola and its top competitors.
For each of your social media channels, track…
My Competitor Analysis Guide will show you in detail, how to track your competition.
Aligning with your brand. Brand voice. Consistent from message to message. Images shared on social, match those on your website? Brand name correct? Branding guidelines that outlines branding specifications, such as…
Download my social media checklist bundle...
your ultimate social media bundle!
Daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly checklists, to ensure you never miss a step.
This is about managing your social media marketing, rather than measuring metrics. But, equally important that you monitor. You need to track…
Download my 23 social media tips to create a rocking social media strategy - best practices, video marketing, using hashtags, tone of voice, responding to negative comments, and more…..
There are many social media metrics available for you to track. Much as I know you love my content, I’ve only included the business-critical ones, otherwise this guide would go on forever, and ever.
Measuring social media metrics is vital. They’ll reveal whether your campaigns are working or not. Use the inbuilt analytics in your social media channels, along with Talkwalker for a deeper social media analysis.
Concentrate on crucial metrics - engagement, sentiment, reach, share of voice, response time, referrals, conversions - that’ll reveal the full picture of your social media performance. Fine-tune your monitoring, as you learn more about what matters to your business.
To help you on your journey to social media success, I’ve bundled together some essential social media templates...
Are you a victim of social media overload?
Don't wing it on social…