• Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • Youtube
  • Pinterest
Digital Storyteller
  • Services
  • Pricing
  • Our Team
  • Resources
    • Blog
    • Marketing Calculator
  • Contact
  • The ROI of Organic Digital Marketing
  • Menu Menu
News, Social Media

Key Metrics For Social Media Performance

person holding blue pen

The world of social media metrics is evolving at a rapid pace, making it nearly impossible to understand without at least a little bit of background information. Whether you’re trying to get new followers or increase engagement, there are a few key metrics for social media performance that are more important to watch than others.

In this guide, we’ll go over what social media metrics are, why they’re important, how to find them, and which ones you should be paying closest attention to. Consider these basic KPIs to be the foundation of your digital marketing strategy — there is more to know, but mastering these will help you quickly make improvements across the board.   

As a general rule, seek out rates and more nuanced metrics, avoid overemphasizing simple counts and totals. Here, we highlight five of the most important social media metrics you should be tracking – and they’re not just the usual suspects.

Why Do We Need to Measure Success?

Numbers are the universal language, especially for marketers. Every effort and activity we do has to be translated into tangible numbers. There is no way for marketers to measure the effectiveness of various campaigns unless the measurement of important metrics is in place.

Now that you have set goals for your social media marketing strategy, it’s time to think further — measure the performance. Don’t be misguided: Likes and shares aren’t the main numbers to monitor. There are more important metrics that you should rely on to assess the effectiveness and success of your social media activities.

These five metrics will focus on the first two layers of the marketing funnel. We will follow up with a post entirely dedicated to conversion metrics later. Here’s a look at awareness and engagement as they related to marketing:

  • Awareness reflects the metrics that connect your audience (potential customers) with your brand
  • Engagement reflects the numbers on how your audiences interact with your content

Awareness Metrics to Measure Success

Awareness is the first stage of our marketing funnel. our main focus at this stage is to get attention from our audience and make them aware of our product or brand.

1. Brand awareness

This is the general attention on and understanding of your brand that you get from your audience. Measuring brand awareness may be challenging, especially if you’re just starting your social media game.

Our advice for startups is to create a social media posting schedule and stick to it. Try to gather some information before actually measuring it. Once you have a functioning social media space, you will be able to measure your brand awareness.

For us, one of the best indicators for measuring brand awareness is mentions of your brand name. You should aim to track the who, why, and when of mentions of your brand on social space. Sometimes, if you aren’t directly tagged in a post, it may be hard to track. I use “Mention” to get our daily updates on who mentioned our brand, on which platforms, and what they said. Give it a shot!

Also, you should monitor trends. This means to try and see what people are in fact searching for. A great tool for this is Google Trends.

2. Post reach

Post reach is a number of people who have seen your post since it was published. It’s an important metric as it will give you insights into your targetting — whether your target is too narrow or too broad.

If your reach seems low, try adjusting your audience settings. If you are using Instagram, try adding more diverse hashtags; if you’re using Facebook ads, try to adjust your audience settings.

You can easily calculate your post reach. Take any post, divide the number of people who have seen it by the total number of followers, and multiply by 100. For example, the number of people who’ve seen your post is 1,567 and you have 5,689 followers. This will translate into a 27.5% reach. We always try to have our content hit at least the 40% mark.

3. Audience growth

In simple terms, this metric measures how fast you’re gaining new followers during a certain period of time. You may set your own goals and develop campaigns to achieve the desired numbers.

To keep our team motivated and accountable to our social media work, we try to measure this weekly (every Monday). We simply compare this Monday’s numbers with the stats from last Monday.

Believe it or not, this is one of the most important metrics for any marketer as it’s easy to neglect the growth in followers. Seeing how many new followers you’ve gained in seven days will motivate you to do better next week.

You can calculate your growth rate by dividing the number of new followers by the number of total followers and multiplying it by 100. For example, if since last Monday, we have gotten 267 new followers, and our total number of followers now is 4,567, this means that our weekly growth rate is 5.8%.

You should set your own targets and decide how fast you want to grow.

Engagement Metrics to Measure Success

Engagement metrics are among the most interesting ones to analyze because they will give you an insight into how and with what kind of content your audience interacts the most. This is mainly about comments, shares, likes, reposts, etc.

4. Average engagement rate

Average engagement rate is a percentage of people who interact with your content. The higher the rate, the more engaged people are with your content, which is great as it should be your main objective.

It’s calculated by taking all engagement (usually likes, shares, and comments) within a period of time, dividing it by the total number of followers, and multiplying by 100. For example, someone gets 356 likes/shares/comments on their content this week. They currently have 1,098 followers. This translates into a 32% engagement rate.

The good news about measuring the engagement rate is that LinkedIn and Facebook have it automatically calculated for you. As for Instagram, you may rely on your own calculation or use Tanke to calculate for you.

(Off-topic: Tanke is a great tool to analyze the basic information for Instagram accounts and to spy on your competitors.)

5. Instagram saves

Likes and comments are dropping on Instagram. However, there is a new hot metric that you can start relying on to measure engagement. It’s how many people saved your post.

Tracking Key Metrics For Social Media Performance Is Crucial For Success

Tracking social media figures has never been easier as most of the platforms offer automated calculations. All you need to do is actually pay attention to these figures and make sense of them.

Tracking and analyzing should be a big part of your social media game. Knowing how your posts perform, you will be able to better adjust your campaigns, strategize, and eventually achieve better results.

It’s also exciting to actually know how your posts compare with each other. You will be able to discover patterns and see what works and what doesn’t. In the end, you want to give only what works to your audiences so that they engage more and convert more readily.

Which metrics do you use to measure the ROI of your marketing efforts?

May 19, 2020/by Amanda Rogers
Tags: Data, KPI, Metrics, Social Media, Tips
Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://digitalstoryteller.io/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/person-holding-blue-ballpoint-pen-on-white-notebook-669610-scaled.jpg 1696 2560 Amanda Rogers https://digitalstoryteller.io/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Digital-Storyteller_Logo_RGB_Signature_Full-Color-300x300.png Amanda Rogers2020-05-19 07:10:002021-12-10 10:00:30Key Metrics For Social Media Performance
You might also like
man on computer looking at presentation that says "outsourcing" Five Reasons to Outsource Marketing
Andrew Marr Inspiring Change, with CEO Andrew Marr
person washing his hand Quarantine Survival Guide
PR vs Backlinking Strategies: What's the Difference? PR vs Backlinking Strategies: What’s the Difference?
What’s the Difference Between Google Analytics and Google Search Console? What’s the Difference Between Google Analytics and Google Search Console?
Client Spotlight: Frank Crivello, SBMA Benefits Client Spotlight: Frank Crivello, SBMA Benefits
two employess on a computer building brand awareness How to Use an Organic Marketing Strategy to Build Brand Awareness
Want to Connect with Your Prospects? Use Video. Want to Connect with Your Prospects? Use Video.

SEARCH

CATEGORIES

LATEST POSTS

  • sign pointing one way to b2b marketing and the other way to b2c marketingB2B vs. B2C Marketing: What’s the Difference?November 13, 2022 - 7:00 pm
  • black and white question marksWhy Do We Call Our Company “Digital Storyteller?”October 30, 2022 - 7:00 pm
  • desktop and laptop on desk used for website auditsThe Importance of Website AuditsOctober 9, 2022 - 7:00 am

Follow us

RESOURCES

Blog
Privacy Policy

GET IN TOUCH

2710 Lone Jack Rd
Encinitas, CA 92024

858.945.1069
info@digitalstoryteller.io

STAY CONNECTED

Follow a manual added link

© Digital Storyteller 2020

Get The Secret Sauce

Delivered right to your inbox (napkins optional)



© Digital Storyteller 2020

Quarantine Survival Guideperson washing his handa nice looking workplaceWhy your business needs its own blog Scroll to top

This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept settings

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Google Analytics Cookies

These cookies collect information that is used either in aggregate form to help us understand how our website is being used or how effective our marketing campaigns are, or to help us customize our website and application for you in order to enhance your experience.

If you do not want that we track your visit to our site you can disable tracking in your browser here:

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Other cookies

The following cookies are also needed - You can choose if you want to allow them:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy
Accept settings