18 Social Media KPIs You Need to Track to Measure Success
Social media key performance indicators—or social media KPIs—let you measure the success of your social marketing plan and help you improve performance.
Social media key performance indicators—or social media KPIs—let you measure the success of your social marketing plan and help you improve performance.
If your boss asks, “How well are we doing on social media?”, do you respond with words or numbers?
Because data trumps opinion. Every time.
I’m not talking about the number of new fans, followers, likes, or shares. I’m talking about how those numbers show if you’re achieving your business goals.
Is what you’re doing on social useful? Is it contributing to more business?
That’s what your boss wants to hear from you.
This guide will show you how to measure your social media performance—with social media KPIs. But first…
Bonus: Get a free social media report template to easily track and measure performance against your KPIs.
They’re similar, but different than social media metrics.
How’s that?
A business metric is a number. It measures the performance and activities of an organization. Like profit, employee turnover, calls made, calls answered, time spent, costs incurred. Stuff like that.
A KPI is also a number—a type of metric.
A KPI measures performance deemed valuable to the business. And, it’s tracked over time to measure progress (or not).
A business metric should be measured against a target. A KPI should measure the success of achieving that target.
Got it?
Good. Let’s look at the KPIs worth tracking for your social media.
How many people might see your posts across all of social media?
Say you have a Facebook profile 300 people like. Now add your 500 Twitter followers. Same for you other social accounts. Sum it all up- that’s your potential reach.
Ready, set, measure.
How many times did your post show up in someone’s feed or timeline? I’m not talking about the ones looked at, noticed, or read. Just the number of chances people had, by the screens they appeared on.
What’s the rate of growth for your social media followers?
This is less about how many, more about how quickly.
And, was it faster than the previous months?
Example:
How many people have seen your post since it went live? That’s post reach.
For this KPI, experiment with when you post and what you post.
Because timing and content affects performance. Note the effects as you change these two variables (related: the best time to post on social media).
Example:
Want to know how many people mentioned your brand versus your competitors?
Sure you do.
Whether it be for direct mentions (like ‘@hootsuite’) or indirect mentions (like “hootsuite”).
SSoV lets you know how relevant your brand is in the market.
Example:
Let’s find out how people are interacting (or not) with your posts.
Know how many people are clapping, liking, or favoriting your posts, relative to your total followers.
They just approved what you shared, and consider it valuable.
How nice.
Knowing this rate will help you share the right content for your audience.
Dig deep on this. Try to understand why people applauded. Was it because of that 50 percent discount. Or because of how it ended with such a heartwarming message?
Example:
Similar to above though for likes, shares, and comments. It’s also relative to your total number of followers.
The higher the rate, the better.
Just know, rate matters more than absolute number of likes, shares, and comments. Use this as your guide for what you post.
Example:
Why be limited to just your network?
An awesome thing about social is benefitting from other people’s’ networks, too.
Amplification rate shows how your followers care and share your content with their people. By their shares, retweets, repins and regrams.
The higher the rate, the more interest your followers show in associating with your brand.
Example:
Everyone dreams of going viral.
This KPI is the number of people who shared your post relative to the number of people who had a chance to see it (impressions, remember?).
Measure this for a reporting period.
Reminder… this is about rate, not absolute, shares. A post shared 10,000 times may only get .03% virality. While another post shared 6,000 times may get 9.1% virality—which is far better.
Example:
Bonus: Get a free social media report template to easily track and measure performance against your KPIs.
Get the free template now!How effective is your social media? Time to find out.
How many visitors take the action you asked them to?
Here’s the (ideal) sequence…
You post. User clicks on your call-to-action link. User sees a landing page. They complete an intended action on that page.
Like subscribe to your newsletter, download your guide, schedule time to talk.
You do have calls-to-action, right? No? I wrote this post for you.
Because being social is more than just looking great. You’ve got a business to run. And a boss to please.
A high conversion rate shows you (and your boss) that your fans and followers care about what you have to say, show and share.
You kept your promise, by giving people relevant content. Everyone should be such a solid (social) citizen.
Example:
For your posts, what’s the rate people click on your call-to-action (CTA) links?
I’m not talking shares, likes, or comments. Rather, are people showing an interest in additional content?
Track this KPI often, to learn how compelling your offers are.
Example:
Remember the ideal scenario I listed above for conversion rate?
This one’s not so ideal.
Users clicked on your post CTA, landed on a page, then left without completing the CTA on that page.
They got bounced.
Too bad. Don’t be sad.
Bounce rate is a valuable KPI to measure your social media traffic. Use it to determine your ROI compared to other traffic sources (like traffic from a Twitter post vs. traffic from a Google search).
The lower the rate, the more proof that your targeting the right audience.
How much are you paying, per click, on your sponsored social media post, for a specified time period? That’s CPC.
More than total spend, pay attention to this KPI. To know if your investment is efficient, or wasteful.
Example:
Keep on top of this one. Know what you spending per click for your ads.
This is the amount you pay after 1,000 people scroll past your sponsored post.
CPM is not so useful for measuring how effective an ad is.
But it is useful to:
And, to split test your content. Faster and cheaper than with other measurements.
Example:
This rate is the total number of conversions that came from social media, expressed as a percentage.
Use this to know how effective each post is performing for a campaign. This shows how well your offer resonates with your target audience.
Say you have a landing page with a CTA to download a free guide. Two things you want to know:
Example:
This is the ratio of comments per post to the number of your followers.
It’s better than tracking comments without any context.
Because, an average of 20 comments per post is quite impressive for only 200 followers.
It’s useful to know if what you’re saying sparks conversation.
Example:
Want to know how customers think and feel about your brand? Here ya go.
Got some great reviews, comments and endorsements from customers?
Show them off, as this shows how you delighted them.
Your followers will be more likely to know you’ll do the same for them. This builds trust and credibility for your brand.
Want more testimonials?
Me? Sometimes, when I ask for a testimonial, I offer to write it for them. To save them work. I make sure it’s something that resonates with them and ask them to review and refine it, if needed.
Don’t be shy, give it a try.
CSAT measures how happy people are with your product or service.
It answers: “How would you describe your overall satisfaction with our product?”
Ask them to rate their satisfaction from 1 to 10. Or, say from sucks, meh, golden, best ever. You get the idea.
Example:
(Ah, I think we’re good on the examples now. Don’t you?)
This measures customer loyalty.
Use this to predict future customer engagement, with one specifically phrased question:
“How likely are you to recommend our [company/product/service] to a friend?”
Present a scale, from zero to 10. Then, group the responses:
This list compiles all the formulas you need to track all major social media KPIs in one place.
So, now you’re ready to show your boss:
Be the storyteller of your business, creating clarity for making decisions, backed by data.
That job is easier with social media analytic tools. Each social network has its own, or you can use a tool like Hootsuite Analytics to track performance for all your accounts from a single dashboard.
Sign up for Hootsuite and start tracking and reporting against your social media KPIs. Try it free today.
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