Social media has ignited a fire for marketers to heat up their marketing strategy. You can analyze social media metrics to add fuel to this fire. Social media metrics are essential to improve your company’s social media performance – impressions, engagements, and conversions.
Spark a social media strategy that triggers positive growth for your business. Use social media metrics and KPIs to evaluate the value of your social media efforts.
What Are Social Media Metrics?
Social media metrics evaluate the performance of social media activities. Measure the success of social media campaigns to view the perceived value of your social media marketing strategy.
What Are Social Media KPIs?
Social media KPIs (key performance indicators) are a subset of social media metrics. KPIs measure the progress toward specific social media marketing goals and objectives.
Social media marketing exists to engage and convert viewers into customers. The social media metrics that marketing teams use lie within these 7 areas:
1. Activity
Activity metrics measure your social media team’s outputs – publishing content, differentiating content, answering questions, and solving problems.
Daily postings grow followers 4x faster than posting less than once a week. Increase social media activity to increase visibility.
2. Engagement
Engagement metrics evaluate social media visitors’ interaction with your platforms.
Identify user interests to improve your social strategy.
- Likes: Viewers tap a heart on a post (On LinkedIn, “likes” are called “reactions”).
- Comments: Visitors write an opinion on a post.
- Shares: Users share your content with their audience.
- Clicks: Users click on links within your social media application.
- Post engagement rate: Calculates the percentage of interactions each post receives.
- Account mentions: Amount of times your social media page is tagged on another account.
- Engagement rate per post by followers: Calculates each post’s follower interactions
- Engagement rate per post by reach: Calculates each post’s outreach – viewers that aren’t followers – interactions
3. Awareness
Awareness social media metrics analyze the viewer’s knowledge of your business.
Calculate the success of your marketing efforts to increase brand impressions.
- Impressions: Number of times your content is displayed
- Reach: Number of unique viewers to your social media sites
- Brand mentions: The number of times your company is tagged on another account
- Follower growth: Measures the total number of new followers on a specific social media account
- Social share of voice: Percentage of conversations about your company on social media.
4. Reach
Reach is the total number of unique viewers to see your social media content.
Track the expansion of your reach to grow your audience.
- Audience growth rate: Calculate the number of new followers on social media within a specific time.
- Brand awareness: The extent to which viewers are familiar with your content and brand.
- CPM (AKA Cost Per Thousand): In paid advertising, it’s the cost an advertiser pays for one thousand views or impressions of an advertisement.
- Fans/Followers: The total number of people who support your accounts.
- Influence score: Scales your company’s social media influence based on the audience size.
- Video views: The number of views each video receives.
5. Conversions
Conversion metrics analyze the effectiveness of converting social media viewers to customers.
Conversions prove the value of social media campaigns and drive viewers down the marketing funnel.
- Conversion rate: Records the percentage of viewers who have completed a desired action.
- Click-through rate (CTR): The percentage of viewers who click on a specific link on your social media accounts.
- Cost per conversion (CPC): Analyzes your campaign’s success by calculating the total paid for an advertisement.
- Cost per thousand impressions (CPM): Amount paid on an advertisement per thousand views.
- Bounce rate: The percentage of social media visitors who leave your page after viewing only one post.
- Blog/email subscribers: The number of viewers opting for a blog or email subscription after visiting your social media account.
6. ROI
Return on investment (ROI) metrics evaluate the performance of an investment.
Invest in your social media accounts to provide profitable gains to the company.
- Referrals from social channels: The referral traffic you get from social media to your website.
- Revenue from social channels: The total income received based on social media campaigns.
7. Customer Experience
Customer experience metrics gauge the consumer’s journey with your company. Positive customer experiences on social media encourage loyalty, retain customers, and expand reach.
Positive customer experiences on social media encourage loyalty, retain customers, and expand reach.
- Response Rate: The percentage of comments that a company responds to from a given campaign.
- Response Time: Average time it takes for a company to respond to customers on social media.
- Customer Satisfaction: Measures customer fulfillment with the company’s product and services via social media interactions.
- Customer Reviews/Testimonials: Posts from consumers about their experience with your company’s products or services.
Measure the metrics for specific channels to manage critical activities within the platform. These 7 channels are the tops social media platforms for businesses:
Facebook Metrics To Track
Over 200 million businesses use Facebook’s apps and free tools. Create a business account on Facebook to reach potential customers, gain audience insights and boost brand recognition.
Track Facebook metrics to analyze the company’s success on this social media platform. Here are the Facebook metrics to track:
Facebook Metrics
- Post Engagement
- Post Reach
- Post Impressions
- Follower Growth
- Click-Through Rate
- Page Likes
- Video Views
- Follower Demographics
Instagram Metrics To Track
Instagram is booming with elements – stories, for-you-page posts, advertisements, and reels – for businesses to reach a wider audience. 81% of Instagrammers use the platform for researching new products and services.
Measure Instagram metrics to grow your social media presence and provide value to the company.
Instagram Metrics
- Follower Growth Percentage
- Story Engagement
- Reels Engagement
- Post Engagement Rate
- Post Comment Rate
- Website Traffic
- Follower Demographics
- Shares
Twitter Metrics To Track
With Twitter being the #1 platform for discovery, take advantage of “tweeting” for your business to increase brand recognition.
Twitter metrics provide insight into your social media campaign strategy to understand your audience better.
Twitter Metrics
- Top tweets
- Tweet impressions
- Tweet engagement
- Conversions
- Mentions
- Followers
- Video views
LinkedIn Metrics To Track
LinkedIn runs successful business campaigns through posts and analyzes the data from each campaign. 40% of B2B marketers surveyed indicated LinkedIn as the most effective channel for driving high-quality leads.
LinkedIn Metrics
- Brand Mentions
- Profile Views
- Follower Growth
- Impressions
- Referral Traffic
- Unique Visitors
- Engagement Rate
- Click-Through Rate
TikTok Metrics To Track
TikTok provides a platform for businesses to post short videos that facilitate positive customer relationships. TikTok users feel closer to brands they see on the platform.
Analyze these TikTok metrics to track the benefits of using this social media platform:
TikTok Metrics
- Post Reach Percentage
- Follower Growth
- Engagement Rate
- Comments
- Referral Traffic
- Hashtag Performance
- Average Watch Time
- Top Posts
Pinterest Metrics To Track
Pinterest is a hub for marketers to promote their content and business through images. Advertisers can reach more than 200 million people on Pinterest.
These Pinterest metrics measure a company’s activity on the social media platform:
Pinterest Metrics
- Referral traffic
- Monthly Viewers
- Impressions
- Saves/Repins
- Outbound Clicks
- Engagements
- Clicks
- Top Pins
YouTube Metrics To Track
81% of Internet users have used YouTube to connect with businesses via videos. How-to’s, tutorials, or video streams can promote your business to potential customers.
Investigate YouTube metrics to inform video business strategies.
YouTube Metrics
- Watch Time
- Average View Time
- Engagement
- Impressions Click-Through Rate
- Returning Viewers
- Unique Viewers
- Subscribers
- Traffic Sources
Social media KPIs evaluate data points to prove your organization is on track to meet social goals. These 3 KPI categories improve the engagement and performance of your social channel.
Social Engagement
Social engagement refers to social media visitors’ interactions with your content. Spot trends and understand what your audience likes.
Includes:
- Engagement rate: The total number of engagements divided by the total number of messages sent
- Total engagements: The total number of interactions with your social media platform
- Messages sent: Total number of social messages sent within a specific timeframe
- Top message type: Most popular message type based on engagement rate
- Engagement growth: The correlation between the number of messages sent and the number of engagements
- Engagement by interaction: The total social engagements for each social network
- Account performance: An engagement breakdown for each social profile
- Top messages: View the social messages with the most engagement
With CoSchedule’s Marketing Suite, view social engagement metrics on various platforms.
Social Campaign Performance
Social campaigns contain multiple messages that are distributed on various social media platforms to promote specific content. Gauge the success of your social campaigns with this feature.
Includes:
- Engagement rate: The total number of engagements divided by the total number of messages sent
- Total engagements: The total number of interactions throughout your social campaign
- Messages sent: The total number of messages sent through the duration of the campaign
- Top message type: Most popular message type based on engagement rate
- Engagement growth: The correlation between the number of messages sent and the number of engagements with your campaign
- Engagement by interaction: Breakdown of social engagements for each social network
- Account performance: An engagement breakdown of every social profile used through your campaign
- Top Messages: The social messages with the most engagement within your social campaign
Select a social campaign on CoSchedule’s Marketing Calendar to track the performance.
Pro Tip: Compare social campaigns to analyze performance data side by side.
Performance By Social Profile
Performance by social profile shows the impact of your specific social media profiles. Analyze performance on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram to understand which content increases engagement.
Includes:
- Impressions On Posts: Total number of impressions during a specific timeframe
- Impressions Rate By Post Type: The number of impressions based on each message type – image, text, video, and link
- Best Day To Post: Best day of the week to post based on the highest engagement rates
- Best Time To Post: The best time of the day to post based on the highest engagement rates
- Best Message Type To Post: Best message type to send to post based on the highest engagement rates
- Engagement Rate: The total number of engagements divided by the total number of messages sent
- Top Posts: Most popular posts based on engagement rate
View a LinkedIn Report on Marketing Suite to measure that platform’s performance.
Social media analytics tools calculate the success of social media efforts. These tools allow you to analyze social media metrics for an improved brand presence online.
1. Social Media Performance Tool
Social media performance tools gather information produced by social media platforms and analyze the activity on each platform. These tools provide a clear understanding of the performance of your social media accounts.
Social media performance tools allow your team to view the effectiveness of each platform. Evaluate data within seconds and identify ways to improve page performance all on one tool.
For example, CoSchedule’s Marketing Suite allows you to view social media performance reports on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
2. Analytics Within Each Platform
Each social media platform hosts its version of an analytics tool. Within each platform, you can view data collected for you based on your specific platform activity.
With this free tool, you can quickly view the statistics of that account and pinpoint page performance. However, each platform only allows you to analyze data within a specific time frame for that particular account. These tools let you solely view numbers rather than analyze the data for improvement.
For example, the analytics feature in Meta for Facebook and Instagram provides insights into specific data on that account.
3. Tracking Spreadsheet
Tracking sheets manually record social media metrics. Spreadsheets are free tools to collect data in one place. However, spreadsheets take time to insert all the data and analyze it to be valuable information.
For example, the content upgrade spreadsheet allows you to track specific variables on multiple platforms.
