No-one invests in social media marketing without wanting some sort of positive outcome out of it. However, what that positive outcome should be, can be hard to put a finger on. There are a lot of different metrics to track and each of them can contribute to your idea of success in one way or another. However, if you want to get a picture of exactly how well your social media marketing is doing (and what you can do to improve it) then we’re going to look more closely at what, exactly, you should be tracking as you go.
Impressions
The most basic key performance indicator around when it comes to your social media posts. Impressions are, effectively, how many people have seen your post or, at the very least, had the opportunity to see it. You can boost impressions very easily with a little bit of a budget behind a post, but you shouldn’t make the mistake of believing that a lot of impressions mean your post is successful. It means you’re good at getting the post in front of a lot of eyes (or at least a lot of potential eyes) but you should be tracking the following stats to make sure you’re making good use of that opportunity.
Clickthrough rate
In most cases, a brand’s social media post is not going to begin and end with the post. Rather, the post serves as the opening to another page, be it a product page, landing page, or a blog post, that the reader will then hopefully engage with. A good clickthrough rate is a sign that the value prospect of the post is attractive enough to lead to that valuable click. Whether you want the click to engage audiences with the brand or to try to convert them into customers is up to you and there are different metrics to measure your success, there.
Social engagement
One of the big benefits of social media is, of course, that you’re not the only one who contributes to the success of a good post. Comments on the post are a great measure of the ability of the post to engage the audience (provided that they are not all negative comments) and shares/retweets of the post are a great indicator of its social value to some degree.
Conversion rate
If you’re looking to win customers, first and foremost, then you should be looking not only at clicks, impressions, and shares. You should also be looking at how genuinely effective your posts are at turning people who click into customers. You can increase conversions from social media posts in a variety of ways. For instance, you should make sure that landing pages match the subject of the post as closely as possible and that those pages have calls to action that lead your visitors down the marketing funnel as easily as possible with minimal effort from them.
Cost per conversion
Aside from winning customers and leads over, you also want to make sure that you’re not spending too much while you’re doing it. Social media marketing is worth investing in but it’s also worth making sure that you’re getting returns that are worth it. As such, make sure you are measuring your social media ROI as you go along. Your ROI, or return on investment, is a direct representation of how much money you’re getting to how much money you’re spending. While sometimes taking social media marketing costs at a loss to spread awareness can be effective, you shouldn’t be taking losses unintentionally.
Virality?
Should viral posts be considered the marker of success when it comes to your social media marketing? To put it simply: no. There’s no denying that going viral can be extremely good for business, but there is no way to reliably create viral marketing. Social media posts should be obligated to be engaging, to be interesting, and to be creative, and, in the process of doing those things, you may reach the right combination at the right time that turns into a viral post. However, in aiming for virality first and foremost, you can miss the other marks.
Your definition of what successful social media marketing is will depend largely on what outcomes you want. If you’re looking to improve your brand awareness, then clicks and shares are where it’s at, but if you’re looking to use it as a direct revenue-increasing ad tool, then conversion rate and ROI are going to be the keys.
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