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How do you prove that your social media accounts are contributing to revenue growth for your company? You’ve probably felt the pinch of uncertainty when it comes to deciphering which social media Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) genuinely matter for your business’s growth.
Perhaps you’re sitting there, scrolling through endless metrics, wondering which ones will truly tell you if your social media efforts are paying off. Which ones should you monitor, and which should you focus less on? And most importantly, which ones should you include in your monthly reports?
At RedPandas, we post over 65 pieces of content every week. We’re constantly looking at social media metrics, so we know which ones you need to focus on to not only grow your social media accounts, but demonstrate that they’re providing real value for your company.
By the end of this article, you’ll have a clear understanding of the 3 social media KPIs you need to be focusing on.
The Importance of Tracking the Right KPIs
Focusing on the wrong metrics can lead you astray. Vanity metrics, like the number of followers or likes, may look impressive at first glance, but they don’t necessarily translate into business success… unless you view these alongside other important metrics.
For example, viewing likes and shares by itself may be pointless. But viewing them alongside reach and conversion data can give you insight into the conversion path for your brand across social media accounts.
The right KPIs shed light on how well your social media activities align with your business goals, helping you refine your strategy, allocate resources effectively, and, most importantly, demonstrate ROI.
So, as we delve into the specifics of each KPI, remember: the goal isn’t just to gather data. It’s to gain actionable insights that can drive your social media strategy forward, ensuring every post, tweet, and update contributes meaningfully to your business objectives.
KPI #1: Reach
Reach defines how far your content travels across the social media landscape. It’s about the potential audience size that sees your content, offering a glimpse into your brand’s visibility.
Look at these key metrics to understand your reach:
- Followers/Fans/Likes: The foundational metric for potential reach, indicating how many people have opted to see your content regularly
- Impressions: The number of times your content is displayed on a screen, regardless of clicks or interactions, giving a sense of its visibility
- Reach: The number of people that your content reached. The difference between reach and impressions is that if one person saw your post 10 times, that would be recorded as 1 reach and 10 impressions. This is an important distinction to make because looking at these two metrics side by side gives you an indication of whether your content is not only reaching many users, but how many times those users may be seeing your content
Why Reach Matters
Reach is crucial because it determines the upper limit of your engagement potential. The broader your reach, the more opportunities you have to connect with potential customers and grow your audience.
To increase your reach, you can try some of the following things:
- Diversify your content types i.e. instead of just video, use images, carousels etc.
- Post consistently, i.e. at least once every day
- Leverage and test different hashtags
- Keep an eye on trends and use hashtags related to these
By understanding and optimising reach, you set the stage to have higher levels of engagement, which leads us to the second KPI on the list.
KPI #2: Engagement
Engagement stands at the forefront of social media metrics for a reason. It’s the heartbeat of your social media presence, indicating how actively your audience interacts with your content.
But engagement is more than just counting likes or shares; it’s about understanding the depth of your audience’s interaction with your brand.
It’s about defining interest and building trust, which is a pivotal step to generating sales. As such, it’s no wonder why engagement is an essential metric to track. Without it, how can you ever expect to generate conversions?
Here’s some metrics you can look at to gauge engagement levels:
- Likes: While they might seem basic, likes are the initial indicator of approval from your audience. They signal that your content resonates with viewers, but they’re just the starting point
- Comments: Comments are a goldmine of engagement. They represent a higher level of interaction than likes, as they require more effort from the user. Comments can provide insights into your audience’s thoughts and can be a gateway to deeper conversations
- Shares: When someone shares your content, they’re essentially endorsing your brand to their network. It’s a powerful form of engagement that amplifies your reach and builds credibility
- Clicks: Clicks indicate that your content has successfully piqued interest, prompting users to want more. Tracking clicks can help you understand what content drives curiosity and action so that you can produce more of that and generate conversions
- Video Views: If you’re using video content, views can be a crucial engagement metric. They show the appeal and retention power of your video content, offering clues on how to refine your video strategy. Don’t just look at how many video views you received, try to find out the average watch time, as this will tell you where users stopped watching your video, giving you an indication on what you might want to improve next time. Looking at average watch time also shows you which content resonates and builds interest, and which may not
- Time Spent on Content: This metric is especially relevant for in-depth content like articles or videos. More time spent can indicate higher quality or more engaging content
Why is engagement important?
Engagement reflects the quality of your connection with your audience. High engagement rates often lead to stronger brand loyalty, more effective word-of-mouth marketing, and, ultimately, more conversions.
To boost engagement, focus on creating content that adds value to your audience, resonates with their interests, encourages interaction, and sparks conversations. Getting more engagement is all about understanding your target audience’s key motivators and pain points, and developing content that resonates with those.
After this, you’ll want to monitor your content to see what succeeded in terms of engagement and what didn’t. Then you simply post more of what works and less of what doesn’t.
This is what will help you build engagement.
KPI #3: Conversions
Now this is the goldmine. But you need reach first and engagement second, in order to have a crack at generating conversions.
Conversions refer to metrics like leads, purchases, app installs, and other valuable actions that are meaningful for your business.
You might initially think, why worry about reach and engagement if I can just focus on conversions right away?
Well, here’s the thing. Reach and Engagement are the bridge to conversions. Without reaching an audience and getting them interested, how can you hope to convert them?
In saying that, measuring leads via social media might not be as straightforward as you think. Here’s some ways you can measure leads on social media:
- Conversion Tracking: Utilise social media analytics tools to track how many users take a specific action that indicates interest, such as signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper. You’ll need to track this via a Pixel
- Direct Messages: On platforms like Instagram or LinkedIn, direct messages can often be initial lead indicators, especially if they inquire about your products or services. For example, you might want to track the number of messages your accounts received in the last month
- Click-through to Lead Conversion: Monitor how many users click through from your social media posts to a landing page and then take a desired action
To enhance lead generation on social media:
- Offer Value: Provide content that addresses specific user needs or pain points, incentivising them to engage further with your brand
- Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Ensure every post intended for lead generation has a clear, compelling CTA guiding users on what to do next. Remember, some posts should focus more on engagement, but those focused on conversions should have a clear CTA aimed at achieving this
- Optimise Landing Pages: Ensure the landing pages linked from your social media are optimised for conversions, with a straightforward path to becoming a lead. If your social media content is fantastic but your landing page destination is not, then you won’t generate conversions no matter how hard you try
So, What’s Next?
Once you’re tracking the right KPIs regularly and reporting on these, you’re probably going to want to increase your output. After all, if you can post more consistently, then you know you will get better results.
But you only have so many hours in the day.
Learn how we post 65+ pieces of content every week.
Read: How we Generate 65+ pieces of Content per Week
