Analyzing Social Media Metrics: What Matters Most?

Let’s begin by stating the rather obvious. There’s no one single magic metric that you absolutely need to measure when it comes to social media analytics. Think of your social media metrics as a rainbow cake if you will. Each color, each layer of the cake is just as important as the icing on top and together they make that magical dish that shows your audience loved what you whipped up! Or not. That’s always a possibility too, we can’t deny. 

But don’t fret. Because just like social media itself, social media metrics are constantly in a state of flux. Changing as the algorithm tides turn. That is why it is important for you to stay on top of the KPIs (key performance indicators) that matter most to your business. Or your brand. But if you don’t know where to begin, here’s a list of the most important social media metrics that should be on your clipboard. At all times. 

1. Engagement metrics 

If the name isn’t a giveaway, engagement metrics are all about how often your target audience is interacting with your social media content. And this could take any shape or form. Think likes, shares, comments, video plays and more. Honestly, they are a crucial part of measuring your social media ROI (return on investment). 

Now you might think that if you have 3000 followers, all 3000 of your followers will see your latest post. Like an army waiting for a signal (your latest post) to go on a rampage (in this liking, sharing or commenting on the post). However, reach is a variable and is dependent on multiple factors including the ever so notorious social media algorithms. 

Anyway, here’s the formula via which you can calculate engagement rate for your social media post: 

Total number of interactions (likes, shares, comments) ÷ Total followers x 100

2. Reach

Part of the dish called audience analytics, reach shows how many people on social media have actually seen your content. Even if they’re not your followers. Now you can go about calculating this in two ways. Either by individual posts. Or as an average of all your posts in a specific time-frame. Say a week. Or maybe a month. Also, check how many non-followers are actually viewing your posts. If a large number of non-followers are, chances are you’ve won the algo game. So kudos to you for that. 

3. Impressions 

Part of performance tracking, think of impressions as a brother from another mother of reach. What are impressions, though? The overall number of times your content is viewed. Again, just like reach, you can conduct this metrics analysis both on the basis of per post as well as of your social media page overall. Though the choice is yours, we strongly suggest doing both. Because impressions can be greater than reach considering the same people can view your posts multiple times. And if they are viewing a particular post over and over and over again, try to find out why. It can really be helpful in making you understand what ticks and what sticks. 

4. Video views and completion rate

All these fantastic reels and TikTok videos you’ve been putting out lately. Surely, they’re grabbing eyeballs. Well, a great way to know if they’re shining bright on the black mirror screen is to check video views and completion rates. These should be a part of your social media reporting tools arsenal, in fact. Anyway, video views are all about how many unique individuals have watched your video, whereas completion rate is how many of those unique viewers have watched it till the end.

5. Click-through rate

Got links on your social media page to your website or your brand store? Well, CTR or click-through rate will help you know how many of your page visitors have clicked on that link to know more about you. If your CTR is high that means you’ve done good work on your posts, getting your audience curious enough to know what you’re all about.

6. Conversion rate

Now say your audience is on your website because of the link on your social media page. And the content on your website is so compelling to them that they can’t help but sign up for your newsletter. Or shop for something on your website. Conversion rate will measure that. I.e. how many of your audience members were compelled to take a conversion event because of your social media content.

7. CPC or cost per click

You’ve got a social media page for your brand, which means you’re also likely running social media ads to attract new followers, who will likely lead to new conversions. So what does CPC measure in this regard? It simply measures the amount you pay every time an individual clicks on your ad. You need to know your customer lifetime value to know if your CPC is paying off right.

8. CPM or cost per thousand impressions

A data-driven social strategy is all about getting your numbers right. And the CPM is an important piece of that pie. Now what it is what it sounds like. It is what you pay every time your social media ad gets a thousand impressions. This one primarily focuses on views as opposed to actions so you might want to keep that in mind.

9. CSAT or Customer Satisfaction Score

Social media can also be about providing customer service. And if you’re the kind of brand that does that, you might want to check out your CSAT score. What will this metric reveal to you? The magic metric of how happy your audience or customer is happy with the service you provide to them on social media. Think of it as a one-question survey. You’ll ask them to rate you on a scale to know how satisfied your average customer is with your service.

10. NPS or Net Promoter Score

And finally, we come to NPS. The cherry on top of our rainbow metrics cake! NPS is probably the best way to know how effective your social media strategy is and how much your efforts are paying off because this one measures customer loyalty. It’s when your customers turn into your advocates. Pure loyalists. So how you calculate this is by doing a survey where you ask your customers how likely they are to recommend you on a scale of 1-10. Those who score you 0-6 are detractors, 7-8 are passives and 9-10 are promoters. Now to get the exact number of promoters, you have to do this:

Promoters - detractors / Total responses x 100

There are more metrics to calculate too, but this is a good list to start with. We won’t blame you if you're already overwhelmed looking at this list. Acing your social media game is a tough job. It’s not all about metrics anyway. It’s about ideating and executing posts too. Then posting them and optimizing them. And tracking their metrics to fine-tune your strategy further. All of them Herculean tasks. Which can become as easy as a single click if you get BrandSocial to handle your social media for you. With their advanced AI tool set, BrandSocial can take care of ideating, executing, posting, measuring and optimizing your social media posts for you so you don't have to face this headache. For more insights into optimizing your social media strategy and leveraging data for success, visit Brand Social. Discover how our innovative solutions can transform your approach to social media analytics and help you achieve your business goals.