If you go through posts on the importance of social media marketing, a large chunk of what you will see is how social media ads is a game changer and everyone should dive into to it.
But I want you to take a minute to answer this question, how do you know if your efforts are paying off?
Do you run adverts and assume they are performing as you want them to or do you take the time to measure it.
After measuring it, what do you do with the insights you’ve gotten?
If you have little or no idea of how to measure social media success, relax, as I will be doing a comprehensive breakdown of how to understand key metrics and analytics.
WHAT IS SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS?
Social Media Metrics are tools that exist to serve your social media activities. These metrics help you understand your social media activities and the level of your performance.
There are special social media metrics tools that are used to track audience growth, their engagement on a content, website traffic, conversions (purchase or subscription to a newsletter), competitor’s performance and the return on investment.
One aspect of social media metrics is that it helps you understand the key insights about your audience and how you can tailor your social media activities to satisfy their needs.
Explained below are some key social media metrics I believe you need to pay close attention to for your brand’s success. So, let’s dig in!
- Audience Growth Metrics
When you think of Audience Growth Metrics, what comes to your mind?
Your fans or followers, right?
If yes, you are correct!
If you want to expand your follower count and reach, use social media tools like Hootsuite and Buffer to make your work easier.
Being consistent on social media is not easy at all, but with these tools, it can show you how your audience is growing over time and which content is driving the most growth.
It will also clearly spell out your top performing contents and those that need improvement.
- Engagement Metrics
Engagement metrics is a simple purpose of providing a snapshot of how your audience is interacting with your content.
These metrics give you an in depth insight on the number of likes, shares, comments – which is great for knowing whether your content is hitting the sweet spot or not. Tools like Instagram Insights and Facebook Analytics are great for measuring engagement.
- Website Traffic Metrics
Businesses are happy when they are able to drive their target audience to their website. Website Traffic Metrics gives you map that guides your audience to your website. For example, tools like Google Analytics can show you how much of that traffic is coming from different social media channels, their locations, the kind of device they use and many more.
- Conversion Metrics
I believe you want your social media efforts to lead great results, right?
By tracking conversions, it’ll help you understand how your target audience are taking that action that leads to their conversion, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter.
For businesses selling products or services online, tracking conversions from social media is key to understanding the effectiveness of a social media strategy.
- Sentiment Metrics
Even if some social media advertisement are for getting target audience to make a purchase, social media has moved beyond just the numbers.
Most users are now also interested in conversations and connecting with brands. The great thing about leveraging this is that it sets a tone that you can be trusted and you have your audience in mind.
Sentiment metrics can help you gauge the overall tone of the conversation surrounding your brand. Tools that provide sentiment analysis can help you understand whether the conversation is generally positive, negative, or neutral.
- Competitive Metrics
In all your social media activities, know thy competitors.
You might not know this but understanding your competitors might be just want you need to scale your social media for success.
Competitive metrics allows you to compare your social media performance with others in your niche. You get to analyze their engagement rates or follower counts, which serves as a benchmark you can work with.
See your competitors as friend rivals that keeps you on your toes!
- ROI Metrics
This a big one in checking social media metrics.
Calculating your social media ROI involves comparing the costs of your efforts against the results they bring. This helps you to know if your strategies are paying off and also to determine the budget need for your social media activities.
ANALYTICS AND DATA INTERPRETATION IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media metrics is not just about numbers and grafts but using the insights you got to get strategies that will work for you.
After getting date from your social media metrics, what’s next?
Well, the next step is to uncover valuable insights for your brand and execute them.
Use the insights to spot patterns, and adjust your strategies accordingly.
Social media is constantly evolving, you too much constantly keep up with the trends and effect relevant change through regular data analysis and interpretation.
DEVELOPING A SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY ALIGNED WITH BUSINESS GOALS
Your social media strategies should always align with your business goals because once there is disconnect, getting a return on investment is not guaranteed.
Have a clear plan that aligns with your business goals. Whether you want to generate leads, boost brand awareness, or drive traffic to your website, setting SMART goals (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound), with this, you can ensure your social media efforts are purpose-driven and efficient.
Always, put your business goals at the forefront of your social media strategy.
STEPS TO BOOST AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT WITH DATA-DRIVEN TECHNIQUES
I don’t know if I am the only one but whenever I see a social media content that is getting a lot of engagement, I always go through it to know what it is about
You might be like that or not, but let’s face it engagement always boost a brand’s image.
In fact most social media platforms always push content with high engagement for better reach.
If the algorithm can promote a viral content, then even users will want to check the number of likes, shares or comment your content has and engage with it.
This is because most people believe that if is not valuable, people will not bother to engage.
If you are struggling with boosting your audience engagement on your social media content, read these techniques to help you improve your current technique:
- A/B Testing: Post different types of content, have a specific post timings and grab attention with your captions. Try to ensure your audience are easily drawn to your content.
- Engaging Content Creation: Make good use of visuals, like eye catching images, videos and infographics. Ask questions and engage with your audience, then share valuable information to encourage them to engage with your posts.
- Post User-Generated Content: Give room for your fans and followers shine! Share content created by your fans and followers to boosts engagement but also creates a sense of community and belonging.
CONVERSION OPTIMIZATION:
Learn how to turn your social media interactions into conversions. This is an important aspect of making the most of your social media strategy.
The following steps can help you optimize conversions:
- Understand Your Conversion Funnel: The conversion funnel majorly involves awareness, consideration, and decision stages. Stick to your brand voice and tailor your content according to the needs of your audience and potential targets.
- Use Clear Calls to Action (CTAs): Now, I know you might think that give your audience a CTA might not be the right choice. But look, do not be shy, tell your audience what you want them to do!
Whether you want them to visit your website, sign up for a newsletter, or making a purchase, craft a compelling CTA that will give them no choice but do what you want.
Remember, be friendly, not demanding.
- Use Social Proof: Make use of reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content to build trust and convince potential audience to answer your CTA.
WHY YOU NEED TO DO A COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS AND BENCHMARKING FOR YOUR SSOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY
As I’ve written earlier, knowing where you stand in relation to your competitors can offer valuable insights and inspire new innovative ideas for your social media success.
What I’m about to show will take your social media game up a significant notch.
It’s called Competitive analysis and it applies to social media marketing very much. Who are the best people in your industry? Even if you are the best, who are some of the others? Competitive analysis means you carefully study their profiles and portfolios to draw lessons for your page. It can help to put you ahead of them.
Benchmarking means drawing specific standards for your social media based on your examination of the pages of your rivals. It is important that you customize these strategy to fit your consumers.
It is important that you can position your brand strategically in the best way possible. Learn from others to improve yourself.
GETTING ROI ON YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ADS
I believe you want your social media efforts to pay off right?
This is where getting returns on your investment is important.
Be sure that the outcome and results you get match the efforts you put in on your social media.
You can make your social media investment to pay off by optimizing your ads spend, fine-tuning your content, or boosting your conversion rate.
Doing this will help you know what works and what does not so that you do no keep doing the same thing. A wise man said in one of his speeches that it is foolishness to keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Monitor your Return on investment with the aim of continuous improvements.
CONCLUSION
Success can be predicted. It is not always by accident. Success in social media management requires that you study previous activity, engagement, conversions from your page and from that of your rivals and competitors with the aim of improving.