Want to know if your social media efforts pay off? Start measuring their impact.
The “vanity metrics" like follower counts and comments matter. They show if your content resonates. But they're not enough to measure your social media performance.
You need to track metrics at different levels and analyze their cumulative effect.
For example, a spike in likes means nothing alone. But pair it with web traffic, conversions, and revenue data? Now you're seeing how your social media strategy impacts the bottom line.
This guide shows you which social media metrics to track in 2025, how they connect to business goals, and why they matter.
What are social media metrics?
Social media metrics measure how well your social media content performs and what it achieves for your business.
They track everything from social media engagement (likes, comments, shares) to business impact (website traffic coming from social networks, lead generation, sales).
They help you:
- Measure social media campaign effectiveness
- Track follower growth across social media channels
- Monitor brand mentions and share of voice
- Estimate the conversions your social content generates
- Optimize your content strategy based on audience profiles
The key types of social media metrics you should track
Before we dive in: Always start with your business goals before diving into specific social media metrics.
What are you trying to achieve?
Your social media analytics need to connect to your broader marketing strategy and KPIs.
Think about this: A thousand likes look great, but how do they help reach your business goals?
Let's break down the essential social media metrics by category.
Awareness and brand health metrics
Let's start with metrics that show how far your social content spreads and how well it reaches your target customers.
1. Impressions
Impressions track how often your post appears in someone's feed or timeline.
Every time your content is displayed, it counts as an impression—whether or not someone interacts with it.
It also depends on the platform. For example, TikTok shows "video views" instead of impressions.
Why track it: This metric showcases your content’s visibility and helps you optimize posting times and formats
How to track it: You can use native social media platform analytics like Instagram Insights and LinkedIn Dashboard.
To save time and get better data, use a specialized tool like Talkwalker's Quick Search.
It monitors your social media performance data across all major social networks. Its dashboards let you track impressions, buzz, and other awareness metrics.
2. Reach
Reach measures the number of unique people who see your content.
If your post appears in 100 people's feeds (even multiple times per person), your reach is 100.
This shows your actual audience size versus total content displays.
Why track it: This metric showcases the realistic audience size and helps you spot content that attracts more eyeballs.
How to track it: Most native platforms offer built-in reach analytics in their insights dashboards. But you would have to check them separately for each social channel.
Talkwalker helps you aggregate this data and use advanced filters to find patterns in your data.
3. Follower growth
This metric tracks how fast your audience grows over time.
Calculate the follower growth rate as: (New Followers - Lost Followers) / Total Followers x 100 for your growth rate.
Why track it: It shows if your content attracts and retains new audiences, helping you spot sudden changes that need attention.
How to track it: Monitor native platform analytics for follower counts and growth trends.
Here’s what it looks like on Instagram:
You can also use Talkwalker's social analytics to understand your audience growth compared to industry benchmarks.
4. Share of Voice (SOV)
Share of Voice (SOV) measures the percentage of online conversations that mention your brand versus competitors. This includes mentions across social media, news sites, blogs, and forums.
Why track it: This metric reveals your brand's visibility and competitive position in your industry.
How to track it: You will need specialized software to do it.
For example, Talkwalker monitors your SOV across 150 million websites and all major social media networks.
5. Brand mentions and sentiment
Tracking brand mentions helps you see how often and in what context people discuss your brand across platforms.
Checking sentiment also lets you assess whether these mentions are positive, negative, or neutral. For example, praising your customer service (positive) versus complaining about product issues (negative).
It includes direct mentions, hashtags, and brand-related conversations from social media to news sites and forums.
Here’s an example of a user posting a picture from McDonalds without tagging the official brand account:
Why track it: Mentions show brand awareness levels and sentiment reveals brand perception. Together, they help spot potential issues early and guide your social media marketing strategy.
How to track it: Use a social listening platform like Talkwalker.
It analyzes brand mentions across online sources in 239 countries and tracks social media sentiment in real time. It also compares your brand against the competition.
Pro tip:
You can test the waters by using Talkwalker’s free Social Search tool.
Simply enter your brand, product, campaign, or hashtag, and you'll see who discussed it over the last seven days.
Social media engagement metrics
These social media metrics show how users interact with your social media content and reveal what resonates with your audience.
6. Likes/Reactions
This tracks how many times users react to your social media posts through likes, hearts, or other emotion-based responses.
Different social platforms offer various reaction types. For example, there are different types of reactions you can leave on LinkedIn:
Why track it: This metric shows instant content resonance and helps you spot what triggers emotional responses from your audience.
How to track it: Monitor it through native social media analytics on each platform. Compare reaction types and volumes across different content formats and topics.
You can also use Talkwalker to speed this process up and benchmark against your competitors.
7. Comments
This metric measures direct responses to your social media posts, from quick acknowledgments to in-depth discussions.
It includes all types of replies, whether they're questions, feedback, or conversations between users.
For example:
Why track it: Comments indicate stronger engagement than likes as users take time to write their thoughts.
They also positively affect social media algorithms and let you engage with your customers.
How to track it: Use native platform insights to track comment volumes and trends.
Talkwalker's social listening tool also helps you analyze comment sentiment and the top emerging topics.
8. Shares
This metric shows how many people redistribute your content to their networks. It includes retweets, reposts, and content sharing across platforms.
Why track it: It indicates content value - people share what they find useful or entertaining. It also boosts your organic reach without extra costs.
How to track it: Track it through platform analytics and social listening tools.
For example, you can use Talkwalker's virality maps to see how well your content spreads.
9. Clicks
This metric measures how many times social media users click your links or calls-to-action. It includes clicks to your website, landing pages, and other destinations.
Why track it: It shows content effectiveness at driving specific actions—which is one of the key reasons why brands post on social media.
How to track it: You can create specific UTM parameters and track social media clicks via Google Analytics (GA4).
For example, you can see the total organic social media traffic you attracted in a given period:
10. Engagement rate
The social media engagement rate shows how well your content performs relative to your audience size.
You can use this formula: (Total Interactions - likes, shares, comments) / (Total Followers or Impressions) x 100.
Why track it: This metric is a standardized way to assess content performance. It shows whether the social media content you post resonates with your audience.
How to track it: Use specialized social media analytics tools like Talkwalker or Hootsuite to track your social media engagement rates across different platforms.
11. Saves
This metric counts how many users bookmark your content for later viewing. It’s specially relevant on Instagram, Pinterest, and other visual platforms.
Why track it: It indicates high-value content users want to reference and sends positive signals to social media algorithms.
How to track it: Check platform-specific analytics for save counts. For example, here’s what it looks like in Instagram Insights:
Source: Food Blogger Pro
12. Video views
This metric measures how many times your video content gets played across various social platforms.
Different networks count views differently. For example, Instagram counts a view after 3 seconds, while YouTube waits for 30 seconds.
Why track it: It demonstrates the reach of your video content and helps compare its performance.
How to track it: Native social media platform analytics show important metrics like total view count, view duration, and peak viewing times.
Here’s what it looks like on YouTube:
You can also access your video metrics via social media analytics tools like Hootsuite or Talkwalker.
Conversion metrics
These social media metrics help measure how your social media strategy drives real business results and ROI.
13. Social media conversions
This KPI counts how your social media content drives users to complete specific actions.
It involves analyzing sign-ups, purchases, downloads, or any key metrics that matter to your digital marketing goals.
The social media conversion rate shows what percentage of your target audience converts after engaging with your posts.
Here’s how to calculate it: (Number of Conversions / Total Clicks) x 100.
For example, if 1,000 people click your link and 50 convert, your conversion rate is 5%.
Why track it: It links social media performance to business outcomes and shows if your strategy delivers on its goals. It also reveals which types of posts and social media channels drive the most valuable actions.
How to track it: You can track social media conversions in GA4.
To set up conversion events, go to Admin > Data Streams, select your website, and add events under Events.
Mark the desired event as a conversion by toggling "Mark as conversion" in Configure > Events.
To view conversion data, check the Traffic Acquisition report, add "Conversions" as a metric, and filter by social channels.
14. Social media ROI
This metric calculates the business value of your social media management and content. Use this formula: (Value of Conversions - Cost of Investment) / Cost of Investment x 100
Include all costs from ad spend to social media content strategy implementation.
Why track it: It shows how your social media efforts contribute to business growth and helps optimize your social media marketing strategy.
How to track it: Use Talkwalker’s integration with Google Analytics for comprehensive social media ROI tracking across various platforms. Here’s what it can do:
- Link social conversations to website conversions
- Track traffic sources (organic, paid, direct, referral)
- Analyze landing page performance
- Show how social engagement connects to page views
- Compare organic vs social traffic impact
Customer experience metrics
These metrics help track how well you serve and satisfy your audience through social channels.
15. Response time and rate
This KPI tracks how quickly your team handles social media interactions and what percentage of inquiries get answers.
Use this formula for Response Rate: (Responded Messages / Total Messages) x 100.
Why track it: Fast response time shows customers you care, while a high response rate builds trust. It also helps you prevent social media crises and engage your audience.
How to track it: Use Talkwalker to manage social media conversations and quickly generate important insights with its AI technology.
16. Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
The customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures customer happiness with your products or services through social feedback, comments, and direct responses.
You can track it through sentiment in comments, direct message feedback, and social media surveys. Such surveys are usually measured on a 1-5 scale after important user interactions.
Why track it: It reveals real-time customer feelings about your products and services.
How to track it: Combine social media surveys with social listening tools. For example, Talkwalker analyzes comment sentiment to assess your customers’ level of satisfaction.
You can also use Hootsuite to track your CSAT after customer conversations on social media:
17. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS measures customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend your brand (0-10 scale).
Here’s the formula: % of Promoters (9-10) - % of Detractors (0-6) = NPS.
Source: Slack
Why track it: It reveals long-term customer satisfaction and brand advocacy potential.
How to track it: Conduct regular NPS surveys and monitor trends.
You can use social media networks to distribute NPS surveys and launch them after social media customer interactions.
Content performance metrics
Looking at likes and comments alone won't help you achieve real-life results.
Analyzing social content performance metrics lets you see what drives those numbers and create more of what works.
17. Top-performing posts
Track and analyze posts that generate the highest social media engagement and reach across your social profiles.
This includes all content types—images, videos, text updates, and stories.
Understanding which posts perform best helps optimize your entire content strategy and tweak your content plans accordingly.
Why track it: It reveals high-performing content formats, optimal posting times, and topics that resonate with your audience. This guides content planning and helps justify resource investment in specific content types.
How to track it: You can see post performance in native social analytics.
Alternatively, use tools like Hootsuite's Post Performance analytics that offer detailed post comparisons across platforms.
You can sort by performance metrics, filter by campaign, and spot trends in your most successful content.
18. Influencer content performance
It’s also important to measure the performance of your social content within influencer campaigns.
This includes checking engagement levels, reach, clicks, and audience response to sponsored posts.
Why track it: It shows the ROI of influencer partnerships and helps identify collaborations that drivethe best results. Use this data to guide future influencer selection and campaign planning.
How to track it: Use Talkwalker's influencer analytics to compare engagement across influencer posts, analyze audience overlap and reach, and measure campaign effectiveness.
Social media ad performance metrics
Next, make sure to track and optimize your social paid campaigns.
19. Cost Per Click (CPC)
It’s the average amount you pay each time someone clicks your ad.
For example, if you spend $100 on ads that generate 50 clicks, your CPC is $2. Different platforms and targeting options affect your cost per click.
Why track it: It shows if you're targeting the right audience and using your budget efficiently. A high CPC might indicate poor targeting or competitive keywords, while a low CPC suggests effective ad optimization.
How to track it: Monitor it through platform ad managers like Meta Ads Manager or LinkedIn Campaign Manager.
Track CPC trends over time and across different ad formats, audience segments, placements, and campaign objectives.
20. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
This metric shows what percentage of people who see your ad click on it. A higher CTR suggests your ad content and targeting align well.
Use this formula: (Clicks / Impressions) x 100.
For example, if 1,000 people see your ad and 30 click, your CTR is 3%.
Why track it: It indicates ad relevance and shows if your ads are effective.
How to track it: Use native social media platform analytics to compare CTR across different ads and campaigns.
To save time and get deeper insights, use social media campaign tracking tools like Talkwalker.
21. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
The CPM metric shows your ad spend efficiency by measuring cost per 1,000 ad views.
Use this formula: (Total Ad Spend / Total Impressions) x 1,000.
Why track it: It compares ad costs across social platforms and helps you plan awareness campaign budgets.
How to track it: Various platform ad managers provide CPM data. Monitor trends by channel performance, ad placements, and audience segments.
22. Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
This metric measures revenue generated per dollar of ad spend. For example, a ROAS of 4:1 means you earn $4 for every $1 spent on ads.
Here’s the formula: Revenue Generated / Ad Spend.
Why track it: It shows campaign profitability and guides budget allocation.
How to track it: Combine ad platform data with your sales tracking. Use UTM parameters and conversion tracking to attribute revenue to specific campaigns and platforms.
Audience metrics
Finally, dedicate your time to analyzing your social media audience.
Understanding who engages with your social media content helps refine your social media strategy and improve targeting.
23. Demographics and interests
Track key audience characteristics including age groups, gender, location, job roles, and interests.
Different social platforms reveal different audience insights. For example, LinkedIn shows professional data while Instagram highlights lifestyle interests.
Why track it: It helps you create more relevant content, improve ad targeting, and identify new audience segments.
How to track it: Each social media platform provides basic native demographic insights.
Talkwalker offers deeper audience demographics analysis through its Audience Insights feature. Here’s what you check:
- Detailed audience profiling
- Interest and behavior patterns
- Cross-platform audience comparison
- Real-time demographic shifts
You can then measure how different demographic groups interact with your content. For example, comparing engagement rates between age groups or locations.
Top social media measurement tips
Knowing which metrics to track is the first step to improving your social media results. Now let's look at how to track them the right way.
Focus on business impact
Many social media marketers get caught up in vanity metrics like follower count and likes.
Yes, these numbers contribute to your overall social media performance and help you spot potential bottlenecks.
But they're only valuable when connected to tangible business outcomes and your overarching goals.
To get it right, always start by setting clear social media goals that align with your bottom line—whether that's generating sales, qualified leads, or brand growth.
Then, understand how the secondary metrics like likes and shares can help you get there.
For example, if your goal is increasing sales through social media:
- An engaged follower base expands your potential customer base
- Comment sentiment matters because it indicates purchase intent
- Share counts are important because they extend reach to new customers
Then, track how these metrics connect to actual purchases.
For instance, when you see a post with high engagement, analyze whether it drove more traffic to product pages or increased sales inquiries.
You can simplify this task by using Talkwalker.
It helps connect these dots by combining three key data sources: social mentions and interactions from across the web, social media engagement metrics, and Google Analytics data.
This integration shows the complete journey—from a customer's first interaction with your brand on social media through to conversion on your website.
Track your competitors’ social media performance
Measuring your social media performance won’t be complete without competitor tracking. It helps you understand your market position and source new ideas.
For example, you can conduct regular competitive benchmarking to understand where you stand against rivals. Here’s how:
- Monitor your competitors’ content calendar and posting frequency
- Analyze which posts perform best for them
- Track their audience growth and engagement patterns
- Check their hashtag and keyword strategies
- Assess how they handle customer service
Talkwalker automates this task by tracking your rivals' social media performance daily and comparing it with your own.
You can also use Talkwalker to track what customers say about other brands in your niche and analyze the sentiment of these mentions.
Set up regular checkpoints and reporting
Creating a consistent monitoring schedule helps you stay on track with your social media goals.
Set up regular check-ins to monitor different aspects of your performance:
- Check engagement metrics daily to spot and respond to trends quickly
- Review content performance weekly to find content that resonates with your audience
- Create monthly reports on track progress toward key business goals like lead generation or sales
Talkwalker simplifies this reporting process by automatically tracking key metrics and providing customized dashboards.
Customize your social media KPIs by platform
Each social platform serves a different purpose in your marketing strategy.
LinkedIn might work best for lead generation, while TikTok drives brand awareness. Your metrics should also reflect these different goals.
For example:
- Track lead form fills and content downloads on LinkedIn
- Monitor video completion rates and follower growth on TikTok
- Measure community engagement and customer service metrics on Facebook
- Track story views and shopping interactions on Instagram
Remember, no metric is important on its own. Focus on tracking numbers that matter for your specific context and objectives.
Focus on quality over quantity
Finally, strike a balance between chasing virality and building a loyal, engaged audience.
Boosting your reach helps attract new followers organically. But you need to make sure these followers can become potential buyers.
To achieve this, focus on attracting and retaining people who genuinely connect with your brand and match your buyer persona profiles.
Here are some metrics that can help you get there:
- Active followers who regularly engage with your content
- Thoughtful comments that show real interest, not just quick reactions
- Users who consistently return to interact with your posts
- Audience members who stay engaged over time
This data shows you which content sparks meaningful conversations and builds lasting relationships with your target audience.
The top 3 tools for tracking social media metrics
Here are three effective tools that can help you measure and improve your social media performance.
Talkwalker
Talkwalker combines social listening with analytics to help you track your social media performance.
Instead of checking multiple platform analytics, you can see all your social accounts and competitor data in one dashboard.
By connecting with Google Analytics, Talkwalker shows how social engagement leads to website conversions and sales.
You can also use it to analyze brand mentions and track your competitors. It monitors 30 social networks and over 150 million websites, including blogs, forums, and news sites.
Key features:
- Centralized social analytics: Monitor all your social channels and competitors in one dashboard
- Campaign tracking: Track buzz, engagement, and reach across networks with real-time performance data
- Virality mapping: See how content spreads across platforms and identify viral trends early
- Custom reporting: Create reports in multiple formats
- Google Analytics integration: Connect social activity to website performance
- Sentiment analysis: Track brand perception in 127 languages
- AI-powered insights: Get automated summaries and quick answers with the AI assistant
Hootsuite
Hootsuite offers comprehensive analytics across all major social networks, focusing on ROI measurement and performance tracking.
The platform centralizes data from your social media accounts into customizable dashboards and helps determine the best posting times based on audience activity.
It also integrates web analytics to track how social drives website traffic and conversions.
Key features:
- Performance tracking: Monitor organic and paid content across all social networks
- ROI measurement: Connect social activity to web conversions and revenue
- Competitive analysis: Compare your metrics against industry benchmarks
- Content optimization: Learn the best posting times and content types for each platform
- Automated reporting: Generate custom reports with key performance metrics
Google Analytics (GA4)
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google's web analytics platform that helps track and analyze website traffic, user behavior, and conversions.
For social media marketers, GA4 provides insights into how social efforts translate into website interactions. You can use it to monitor the complete journey from social post to final conversion.
The platform shows you the traffic coming from social channels and leads (or purchases) it brings.
You can also apply various filters to analyze separate audience segments, pages, and more.
Key features:
- Traffic tracking: Monitor which social platforms send website visitors
- Conversion tracking: See how social visitors turn into customers or leads
- User behavior: Understand how social visitors interact with your website
- Campaign measurement: Track the performance of specific campaigns
- Custom reporting: Create detailed reports showing social media performance
Pro tip:
Talkwalker’s integration with GA4 makes it much easier to navigate this complex tool and find useful insights. It also analyzes the ROI of metrics that Google can’t access—such as mentions and sentiment.
How to measure the right social media metrics
Tracking relevant social media metrics helps you prove and improve your social media performance.
We covered the essential numbers you can track—from basic engagement metrics to more complex ROI estimations.
Remember that different goals need different metrics:
- Focus on reach and brand mentions for awareness campaigns
- Track engagement and sentiment to assess content performance
- Monitor conversions and ROI when driving sales.
But monitoring these metrics in silos won't get you results. The key is analyzing them together to see the full picture.
A spike in engagement matters more when it leads to website traffic. Growing follower counts are important when those followers become customers.
Set up regular check-ins to review your metrics, spot trends, and adjust your strategy. When content performs well, understand why—then create more of what works.
Ready to start measuring what matters? Try Talkwalker to track the essential social media metrics in one place and connect them to real business results.
