Social Media KPIs Every Marketer Must Track

In today's hectic world of digital marketing, many marketers are unsure whether their posts are generating more revenue. Moving past content posting and towards actual business growth requires an understanding of social media KPIs. Without these metrics, you won't have the information required to demonstrate the return on your investment. In this article, you'll learn all about the key performance metrics that will help you optimise your social media and make it a data-driven engine for success.

What are social media KPIs?

Social media KPIs are the unique parameters that marketers use to track the progress of their social media efforts towards a company's goals. Consider them to be your digital strategy's GPS. They deliver raw data on if you're reaching the correct audience, if that audience cares about your message and if they're taking the actions you want.

A KPI is measurable, whereas a general goal may be something more abstract, like "increase brand awareness". It enables you to state, "This quarter, our brand reach grew by 25%." These metrics cover every phase of your customer's journey, from first-time visitors to your brand to when they are loyal. These can be tracked to help marketers stop relying on guesswork and make decisions based on social media analytics regarding content, budget, and platform concentration.

Social Media KPIs Marketers Should Track

While it's best to categorise your KPIs according to the goals they support, you should take a holistic approach when viewing your marketing performance metrics. Balanced strategy: awareness, engagement, conversion and satisfaction.

1. Awareness Metrics

Awareness metrics show how many people are seeing your brand and how many times. The highest point on the marketing funnel.

• Reach: The number of unique users who have viewed your post. It will let you know where your content is reaching on the platform.

• Impressions: This is the total number of times that people viewed your content. When a user views your post three times, it is considered three impressions.

• Share of Voice: This quantifies what percentage of the online conversation in your industry is about your brand vs others.

• Audience Growth Rate: This metric focuses on the rate at which you are gaining followers, not the number of followers.

2. Engagement Metrics

Engagement shows that people care about what you're putting out there and that they are taking action. If you have a lot of engagement, it means your content is relevant and of quality.

• Average Engagement Rate: It is calculated as the total number of interactions (likes, comments, shares) divided by the total number of followers or reached people.

• Applause Rate: This is the percentage of "shallow" interactions such as likes, hearts or favourites.

• Amplification Rate: The number of times your followers share your content, thus doing your marketing for you.

• Virality Rate: The metric is the percentage of people who shared your post based on the number of impressions it had.

3. Metrics for Conversion

For the majority of businesses, these metrics are the most crucial set of media KPIs. The quantity of socially generated business outcomes is measured.

• Conversion Rate: The number of conversions, or the percentage of users who are converted, occurs when a user clicks on a link in your post and then completes the action (like joining a mailing list or making a purchase).

• Click-Through Rate (CTR): This measures the effectiveness of your call to action by indicating whether or not people are clicking through the links you share.

• Cost-Per-Click (CPC): Because it shows the cost of each click, this metric is essential for paid campaigns.

• The percentage of social media users who visit a link you post on your website but do nothing after arriving is known as the "bounce rate".

4. Customer Loyalty and Service Metrics

Social media is about more than just attracting new clients; it's also about keeping and assisting existing ones.

• Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT): A gauge of how satisfied customers are with your social service, usually obtained through surveys.

• On a scale of 0 to 10, your Net Promoter Score (NPS) rates your followers' propensity to recommend your brand.

• Response Rate and Time: This measures how quickly and frequently your team members respond to direct messages or mentions.

Social Media KPIs Tools

It is almost impossible to measure these metrics manually, and it can be challenging and prone to error. The professional marketers use analytics tools to gather data and publish reports.

• Native Platform Analytics: Facebook Insights, LinkedIn Analytics, Instagram Professional Dashboard, and other built-in tools. They are available free of charge, and the information they give is very accurate and comes from the source.

• Hootsuite: A platform that enables you to monitor performance in multiple platforms at the same time so you can get a single view of your KPIs.

• Google Analytics: This tool is mainly used on websites but is also crucial for social media, as it helps measure conversion and bounce rates after a click-through from a social media link.

• Sprout Social: One of the most comprehensive reporting and “listening” tools that let you monitor brand sentiment and share of voice.

• HubSpot: For users who want to connect their social media information with their CRM (Customer Relationship Management) data to track social leads turning into sales.

• Brandwatch: This tool is more geared towards market research and sentiment analysis, helping to understand the reasons behind the numbers.

Social Media KPIs Benefits

What is the point in all this info? The benefits of tracking media KPIs go far beyond just looking at numbers on a screen.

Improved Budget Allocation

Identifying the most effective platforms and content types can eliminate losses on underperforming channels. When your media analytics reveal that approximately 80% of your B2B leads are coming from LinkedIn, you can be sure to redirect more of your budget to LinkedIn from less successful platforms.

Better Content Strategy

Data reveals what the audience actually enjoys, not what you think they enjoy. If you find that your “behind the scenes” videos are still performing better than your perfect product photographs, then you have a pretty clear idea of what is working best for you and what you can create next. It enables you to concentrate on the part that works and eliminate the rest.

Proving ROI to Stakeholders

Marketing teams are under pressure to prove their value. It provides transparent marketing data to help you show the ROI of your social media campaigns to your managers or clients, as well as how social activity relates to website visitors and revenue. It turns marketing into a cost centre into a revenue driver. 

Benchmarking Against Competitors

KPIs allow you to see where you stand in the market. Knowing the share of voice and sentiment will help you understand whether a competitor is gaining market share and act accordingly before you lose it.