Understanding which metrics of social media engagement are most consequential for your KPIs is essential.
Here’s the deal: vanity metrics don’t exist. The sum of your likes, repeat views, and other actions will have an effect on the company’s bottom line. It’s up to you, the marketer, to figure out what you hope to accomplish with your social media profiles and devise a plan to get there. What you’re keeping tabs on is the first step.
We’ll be discussing the most important metrics of social media engagement that can make or break your success. We categorised them by metric instead of by channel to make things easier to work with.
Measures of social media engagement you should be tracking
- Impressions
- Increase Participation Rate
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Clicks
- Mentions
- Click-Through Rate
Impressions
A post’s impression count includes views from all sources, including organic, paid, and shared content. Remember that the total number of impressions includes views from the same user multiple times.
Reach
The reach of a post is the sum of the number of people who saw it as a result of all distribution channels, including organic, viral, and paid promotion. A user’s visit counts only once towards your post’s reach, regardless of how many times they return. For the purpose of calculating reach, we add together not only your own followers but also those of anyone who has shared the content in question.
Since Reach doesn’t factor in pageviews that occurred on the same device more than once, it provides a more realistic estimate of how many people actually saw your post. As a potential denominator in an equation involving post engagement, this figure is also crucial to keep in mind.
the proportion of people who are engaged in a conversation
The average engagement rate of your brand’s posts is the ratio of the number of people who take some sort of action in response to the post (such as clicking, liking, or commenting) to the total number of people who saw the post. This metric, expressed as a percentage, provides valuable insight into the share of your audience that is actively engaging with your posts and allows you to evaluate your level of participation relative to that of competitors whose audiences may be larger or smaller.
To get the most accurate data for benchmarking your rates against others in your industry, we recommend dividing by followers rather than impressions or reach to determine your engagement rate.
Likes
Likes are generally low-effort on-platform reactions to content, though this can vary from platform to platform. Likes include comments, hearts on Instagram and Twitter, and expressions of interest like “wow,” “care,” and “laughing” on Facebook. Likes and dislikes both show that your readers are interested in what you’ve shared.
Comments
The number of comments on your post includes both natural and promoted ones, as well as any replies you received to those comments and any shares that were made. As an example, a “reply” on Twitter would be considered a comment, but the format may vary depending on the platform.
As it requires more work to write up a reply than to double-tap and keep scrolling, a viewer’s comment on your content is much more significant than hitting like. Readers will let you know whether your content is thought-provoking and well-received by expressing their opinions in the comments section.
Shares
To share means that a user has announced your content to their social feed, group, or specific individuals. Likes and comments show that your readers are interested in what you have to say, and shares significantly expand your content’s reach.
The value of a share, retweet, repost, etc., increases when the original poster adds an editorial note. If we take Facebook as an example, they recently announced that “meaningful conversations” within the app are crucial to the company’s success. There is a slight increase in effort required from your audience when they retweet with a comment or share on Facebook with a caption.
Clicks
Number of times a user clicked on your link, video, etc. is measured in clicks. If you want people to view your landing page, fill out your form, or take some other action outside of the social media platform, then a click is what you need.
In the end, it all comes down to clicks, the ephemeral off-platform “get them to the site” metric. To overcome the click-bait scepticism most of us have developed as consumers, it is crucial to cultivate an audience who believes your content will deliver as promised.
Click-Through-Rate
CTR, or click-through rate, is the most accurate indicator of user engagement. The click-through rate (CTR) is calculated by dividing the number of clicks on a post’s links by the number of times those links were shown to the post’s audience. Your CTR is directly associated with a link that takes people to more content, so it shouldn’t be confused with on-platform engagement actions.
Mentions
The foundation of any effective approach to social listening is the tracking of mentions. The social media term “mention” refers to any time your brand is mentioned by a third party.
Most mentions use the @ symbol, but simply mentioning your company by name is still a valid mention. Even if you aren’t specifically mentioned, any time your content is shared without using the “share” button is still considered a mention.
A closer look at the importance of social media engagement metrics
Regular and precise tracking of all of these metrics will paint a complete picture of your social media success. A more efficient and effective social media presence can be achieved by using metrics to inform your social strategy, such as where to allocate advertising funds, what content to prioritise, and where to make adjustments. Also, by adjusting those key performance indicators, you’ll disprove the old adage that such numbers are merely vanity.