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In the world of social networks, there are so many metrics to think about that it’s incredibly easy for a layman to lose their way. It’s so easy to allow the number of likes, comments and even shares to persuade you that your content and brand are doing so much better than they actually are. Still, allowing these vanity metrics to boost your ego isn’t doing you much of a service. Sure, it would be outright wrong to assume that likes are worthless, seeing as how they boost the credibility of your brand in the world of social media. Nonetheless, there are several metrics that are far more relevant to keep track of. Here are some of them.
1. Traffic
The first thing you need to keep an eye out for is definitely traffic. The number of people who come to your page may reveal quite a bit about your brand. First of all, it may indicate that you have a problem with reach (a metric that we’ll discuss later on) and create a need for you to invest in paid ads or consider a PPC campaign. All in all, the total number of people who see your content or encounter your brand online is probably the first thing you should keep an eye out for.
2. Engagement rate
While traffic is, on its own, important on social media, you have no way of knowing how many of these people might eventually become paying customers. What you can learn, on the other hand, is how many potential customers you have by following your engagement rate. People who engage with your content are more likely to become paying customers, even though there’s no rule that prevents silent observers from becoming clients at one point, as well.
3. Brand mentions
One of the metrics that is the most controversial is brand mentions, seeing as how it’s incredibly hard to precisely quantify them. For instance, a negative brand mention may harm your brand more than three separate positive mentions benefit it. Moreover, not every mention, positive and negative, harms/benefits your business to the same degree. Therefore, looking out for brand mentions on your own might not get you the results you need. Instead, you should look for a specialized media monitoring platform or agency to work with.
4. Reach
In the introduction, we briefly mentioned shares as a vanity metric, which is not always the case. With every person that shares your content, your reach increases to their circle of friends/followers, as well. The problem with this method lies in the fact that things are not so simple, due to the fact that there’s a slight bias (at least on Facebook) towards paid content. In other words, there’s no guarantee that even people who follow you will see every single piece of content you upload, while paid ads might get incredible reach. Same goes for YouTube, as there was recently a controversy regarding their notification system. This is why you need to find out what kind of reach you really have available.
5. Conversion
Finally, you need to keep track of your conversion rate, but this too is a part that a lot of people figure out all wrong. Namely, instead of looking at the overall average conversion rating, you need to find ratings that are suitable for your industry. Namely, e-commerce has substantially lower conversion rates, due to the fact that people check and recheck several websites before making a purchase. On the other hand, sites offering legal advice tend to boast a bit higher average conversions. It goes without saying that you should never aim for average nor feel content with it.
Conclusion
By keeping track of these five metrics, you’ll not only get a general idea of how your business is doing but also figure out how to fix this issue. This is particularly true in the case of reach, brand mentions and conversions, which usually give you a bit more extensive report on the situation in question.
