In 2023, social media marketing involves more than just tracking vanity metrics like likes, shares, and retweets.
You’re undoubtedly a marketer who wants to improve your social media performance. This means you probably appreciate the importance of tracking important indicators. Tracking relevant data is required for gathering social media data, increasing ROI, and identifying which social media techniques are working and which are completely failing.
All of this talk about metrics, KPIs, and conversions, on the other hand, can be a little overwhelming. You might want to consider creating a KPI dashboard to organize these metrics into a single report.
Metrics abound on social media. Not only does each platform have its own set of data, but even when they use the same terms, for example, Facebook and Twitter may have different meanings for the same term.
Today’s marketing students consider social marketing topics for their dissertation, they can get marketing management assignment help from online experts to expand their research on this topic.
Here’s a list of twelve key social media metrics that you should be tracking in 2023 and beyond to make the process of tracking metrics easier for you.
Let’s get started.
Best 12 Social Media Metrics You Should Track!
1. ROI (Return on Investment)
Yes, it can be difficult to quantify. Yes, most social media marketers are incapable of doing so in a way that pleases their managers. ROI, on the other hand, is the holy grail of social media metrics. If you can achieve it, or even a close approximation of it, you will have greater authority and will be able to make better business decisions.
2. Referral traffic
Before you can calculate your ROI, you’ll undoubtedly want to know how many people social media is driving to your website – and which individual platforms are outperforming the rest.
“Referral traffic continues to be an important metric that growth marketers and advertisers will continue to track,” says Lesya Liu, founder, and CEO of Boundless Agency.
It is most likely the most important metric in any business because it plainly demonstrates how successful you are at narrative, audience targeting, and user experience.”
3. Sales generated
Do the individuals who visit your website actually buy anything? When compared to other channels, social media traffic converts at a lower rate. Even though your conversion rates are poor, this does not mean you should not track them at all (Terho, 2022).
Here are some more granular sales metrics to keep an eye on as well:
- How many sales (or orders) do you get from social media traffic?
- Which of your social and digital marketing activities is leading in the most sales?
- How much does social platform traffic cost in terms of average order value (AOV)?
4. Leads generated
It’s unusual to achieve a sale from a first-time social visitor, but you can often convert these visitors into leads who will wind up purchasing later.
Once again, this metric can be split into numerous contributing metrics:
- How long does it take for these leads to convert? (Is it shorter or longer than other channels, such as organic traffic from search engine results?)
- What is the lead-to-sale rate? In other words, are these high-quality leads or not?
- In terms of the average order value and lifetime value, do these leads convert into high-value or low-value customers?
5. Brand mentions
If growing brand awareness is one of your top social media goals, this is an important metric to track. Mentions are simply what they sound like. In other words, it is the number of times your brand name or any other keyword is mentioned (like products, or major campaigns)
6. Sentiment
This metric assesses how people view your brand or a social campaign you are undertaking. So, whether someone tweets “Love these new Nine West shoes!” or posts “I HATE Comcast,” you’ll have precise reports that categories those sentiments as positive or negative.
Sentiment is a good thing to track because you’ll know if there’s a PR problem if you get regular updates. A quick increase in unfavorable attitudes indicates the onset of a social/public relations crisis. If you can respond quickly and effectively, you might be able to settle things down before it escalates.
7. Rate of Audience Growth
A large social campaign or a viral post can result in a large influx of new visitors to your profiles.
8. Posting success
How many people see your social media content? That is how your post reach is measured.
You’re probably aware that Facebook’s reach has been declining for some years. According to recent BuzzSumo data, it has fallen even lower.
If your Facebook reach is decreasing, it may be time to start investing in Facebook advertising to keep engagement rates high. Consider broadening your social media strategy.
Most other social platforms, like LinkedIn, have become pay-to-play; budget-paid social media channels like Facebook ads appropriately.
9. Demographics of the audience
Who is viewing and engaging with your content? That is what the demographic data indicates. This information will be required to properly design your adverts and “click” with your target demographic.
Demographic data can also be used to create marketing profiles for potential audiences. It’s also intriguing to compare the demographic profiles of website visitors with social media audiences.
10. Social share of voice (abbreviated “SOV”).
SOV = your company’s marketing and advertising / the marketing and advertising of the overall market.
Is this metric of “vanity”? Maybe… However, it is also a metric that people care about, including your company’s management and clients. And if you’re using social platforms to increase brand awareness, this is a good way to track it.
11. Excellent content.
These are your top social media posts.
But “greatest” depends on how you define it: does it refer to the most engaging social media posts or shares? Or is it the social media posts that generated the most leads or traffic?
Consider breaking it out by week, month, or even quarter. Consider splitting it down by additional measures as well. Top-performing posts, for example, in terms of reach vs. conversions.
12. Average rate of engagement
Likes, comments, and shares are examples of engagement metrics.
‘Likes’ are a traditional, fundamental metric to track for every piece of content. Tracking likes and followers help to determine the average engagement rate, which can be useful for presenting data and dashboards to your team!
It may not mean much in the end, but it is still worth tracking.
Comments are more valuable than likes because they require more work from your viewers. They can also provide insights into what your target audience truly responds to and how they respond to it.
So it’s always a good idea to keep track of how many people comment on your content and pay them in some way in order to raise this number!
Let’s also discuss the sacred ‘share’. Most individuals don’t share much about brands (few brands, for example, can compete with newborn images), so while these may not directly result in ROI, they’re something most marketers would like to see more of.
The number of shares also indicates whether or not your content marketing team is providing optimized content for social platforms.
Conclusion
Social media metrics are not universal. Instead, then attempting to keep track of them all, consider them more like a toolkit. You have 24/7 access to that toolbox, but that doesn’t imply you should use every tool for every report.
Minimalism is difficult to attain with metrics, but it is a discipline that could benefit you. Especially when you consider that most human brains can only hold seven items in mind at once.
That could be one method to cut down on some reports. If you’re ready to take your social media reporting to the next level, sign up for a free trial of Whatagraph. It’s a simple approach to tracking your social media marketing stats that will wow your managers or clients. Just like hiring dissertation writers UK to wow your professors and get good marks on it!
Reference
Terho, H., Mero, J., Siutla, L. and Jaakkola, E., 2022. Digital content marketing in business markets: Activities, consequences, and contingencies along the customer journey. Industrial Marketing Management, 105, pp.294-310.
CM, 2020. How to improve your Keyword Rankings in Google 2020 |Basic Guide Step-by-Step. Online available at https://www.contentmajestic.com/blog/google-ranking-factors/ [Accessed Date: 18-dec-2019]
