It’s easy to get caught up in likes and shares with your social media marketing, but what are the metrics that matter? Which ones do you need to pay attention to so you know that your marketing efforts are succeeding?
You’ve probably noticed that likes don’t drive sales, and finding out why your customers are buying from you is important. If you’re confused and need a little help, then no worries. Continue reading this article, and we’ll talk to you about key metrics you should pay attention to with your social media marketing and the ones you don’t need to worry about as much.
What Matters
The following things are just some of the metrics that matter. You may find some others that are important to you, but keep a note of these as well.
Times You’ve Posted (Timing Metrics)
Do you know the times you’re posting on any given day of the week? If you don’t have a strategy for the times that you’re posting, then you’re missing out.
If you’re posting during times that your audience is at work without their cellphones or computers, it’s less likely they’re going to see when you post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter.
Go back over your analytics and look to see what you’ve been posting and which times get the most engagement. Do you see a trend? If you notice you’ve posted a few times at 6:00 pm EST on Thursday nights and you had people commenting on your posts, you might want to try posting more content at that time.
On the other hand, if you notice there are times you’ve posted the same great content, but it was crickets, maybe that’s not the best time to post.
Types of Content You’re Posting (Content Metrics)
Look at the type of content you’re producing.
Do you do a lot of long-form videos for your audience? If you’re posting these on Twitter or Facebook, you might not get the reception you want. These platforms are often used to show short videos that are straight to the point.
Maybe you’re posting images and didn’t notice how well people were receiving them and the high level of engagement you’re getting. When you know what’s working, you can focus more resources in that area and boost your engagement and attract more buyers to your products and services.
What’s Going on With Your Audience? (Audience Metrics)
Do you get a lot of engagement but you’re confused why you aren’t getting sales? It’s time to take a deep dive into your audience and see who’s really looking at your content.
Is your target audience engaging with your content? Or are people who are outside of your target audience the ones who are engaging the most?
If your goal is to target affluent women from 35 to 55 who are from New York City, and you notice most of your followers are men in their 60s, this is a problem that needs to be addressed.
Getting a Response (Engagement Metrics)
Is your audience talking to you? If you’re not getting engagement from your audience, you’re likely not getting sales either. Keeping a close eye on your engagement metrics will help you see what type of posts are getting the attention of your target audience.
Look at your total engagement, but also look at how many of those engagements come from comments on Facebook, retweets on Twitter, etc. You should also know whether your engagement rate is increasing or decreasing. If your “social media expert” isn’t tracking your engagement metrics and reporting back to you, then it’s time to fire them.
If you’re using a social media scheduler, these tools usually have all of the information put together in a neat little package for you, so it’s easy to see where you’re doing well and where you need to improve.
Where’s the Traffic Coming From? (Social Traffic Metrics)
While Google is a great source of traffic, social media can deliver thousands of visitors to your site as well. There are billions of people who use the internet and many of them are on social media, but are you getting traffic from your social media efforts?
If you’re paying a “social media expert,” but you’re getting little to no traffic — bye-bye!
Even if you’re getting traffic from social media, if your bounce rate is high, that traffic might not be very targeted. When we’re talking about bouncing, we mean, do people come to your site and quickly go back to the social site they came from?
Ideally, you want these visitors to come to your site and click through other pages of your site to find out more about your company and possibly make a purchase.
Knowing your total sessions from social media, page views, bounce rate, pages per session, average session duration, mobile vs. desktop traffic is important to your social media campaign’s continued success.
What Doesn’t
What doesn’t matter is just as important as what does matter. When we’re caught up in changing and improving the wrong metrics, it’s easy for us to get behind and go off on the wrong track.
Don’t put too much weight into the following:
- Facebook likes
- Twitter followers
- Opt-in signups
- Freebie downloads
- Pageviews
While all of these things look nice and the higher the numbers are, the better we might feel about ourselves, that isn’t what’s important. Track metrics like the ones above, and you’re going to be on your way to success.
Now You Know the Metrics That Matter
Now that you know the metrics that matter, it’s going to be much easier for you to reach success with your social media marketing. Having a clear vision of what you’re shooting for is a must if you want to start attracting and converting more visitors to customers.
Social media marketing can be confusing and time-consuming. If you find yourself needing help, book a meeting with us and let us help you achieve your goals.
