Once you know how your posts are performing, you can set yourself targets which prompt you to optimise your posts and reach a wider audience.
1. Followers
The total number of people who have opted in to see your content.
Check out who they are regularly, and craft your content to talk to your follower audience. If you engage them, they are more likely to share your content.
Look out for the rate of audience growth versus your competitors.
2. Impressions
This is the number of times your post was shown.
If you are talking to the right people about the right topics, the social platforms show your posts to more people with common interests to the people who have engaged with your content.
There is a metric called “reach” on some platforms which tells you how many individuals saw your posts – it usually follows a similar trend to impressions, so choose one or the other to measure.
3. Engagements
This is the number of interactions your posts prompted.
It is standard practise to convert this to an engagement rate :
It’s worth noting that the average engagement rate for Instagram is 0.68%, and for Facebook is just 0.06%.
You’ll find that businesses of different sizes and in different industries prompt very different levels of engagement. Check out your closest competitors to benchmark what good looks like and aim to beat them!
4. Amplification
This is the rate at which your followers share your content.
There is a similar metric called “Virality”, which measures shares as a % of impressions. Measure one, other or both!
5. Timing
Most platforms give you feedback on when your posts are read.
Use this information to understand when people in your audience are most likely to interact with your posts and schedule posts to target those days and times.
6. Clicks
If you have a website, make sure your goals are set up correctly so that you can measure clicks from your social media platforms to your website. You can then track traffic coming from social media to find out which platforms result in the most conversions on your site.
If you are using your social media for ecommerce, or if you advertise on social media, there are of course more metrics to track – here is the latest list from Hootsuite.
Summary
You are investing time (and therefore money) in creating your social media, so it makes sense to set yourself goals, and to track your performance towards them. If you are a competitive spirit, track that performance against your competitors and adjust your campaigns based on what you see and learn!
If you would like to understand more about the analytics available to you, don’t hesitate to contact us for a no commitment chat!
