Essential Social Media Metrics you Should Track

“If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” 

Developing a data-driven mindset is one of the most important things you can do for your business. Collecting and reviewing the right data can provide your business with valuable insight that can help you stay ahead of the pack.  

 

 

Impressions are the number of times your post is displayed online in front of a pair of eyes, whether it is clicked on or not. This is one of the things that sets digital media apart from traditional media - you have the ability to know, in an instant, how many people have seen your ad or your post, and you can dig deeper to see where they are, what kind of device they’re using, what time they’re viewing, and tons of other useful stats.

 

Engagement refers to the number of times people in your audience interact with a piece of created content (likes, comments, video views, etc.). Measuring this allows you to keep current with the pulse of your social media activity and determine if your social media efforts are resonating with your target audience.  

 

You target audience is the judge of all your content marketing, and if your content isn’t resonating with them, they’ll ignore you. Tracking which of your posts perform the best (and the worst) will help you tweak your content to be in sync with what your particular audience actually loves. 

 

Click-through rate (CTR) is a ratio showing how often people who see your ad end up clicking it. CTR can be used to gauge how well your keywords and ads are performing. This data is important because it allows you to determine if your fans are actually clicking through from your content to your website. At the end of the day, your website is where you want your potential customers to end up, since it’s the platform you own and fully control.

 

Referral traffic is Google's method of reporting visits that came to your site from sources outside of its search engine; whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. Knowing exactly where your visitors are coming from will help you to decide which platforms (or websites) to focus your efforts on. 

 

In order for your social media efforts to be successful, the metrics should be connected to your overall business’ goals. Once you are able to understand and evaluate these metrics, you will be able to leverage the information to better position your brand in the marketplace.