Social Media Metrics Overview: 5 Common Social Media Metrics

Social media metrics are benchmarks by which companies can see how well their content meets their outward-facing goals. They function as one of the many building blocks in effective digital marketing campaigns, alongside other elements like search engine optimization (SEO) and email marketing. Social media management software often comes with built-in social media analytics tools to help you track a host of different metrics within the same software used to plan campaigns.

Tracking social media metrics helps companies analyze the amount of brand awareness they’re creating through various social platforms, the number of conversions their posts generate, user engagement with different types of content, and customer satisfaction as a whole.

There’s no single template or metric by which to measure your social media success, but using a diverse set of metrics can help you gain a clearer picture of your overall social media performance.

While every social media campaign is different, you’ll likely want to track some of the same data points from one to the next. Here are four general categories for social media metrics:

1. 1. Brand awareness: Certain social media metrics help you keep track of general brand awareness. They can show you the sheer number of people you’re reaching and specific demographic information about target audience groups or even individual users. For example, you could look at your brand mentions in total (the number of times users mention your brand on social media) and then move on to evaluating your social share of voice (the number of times users mentioned your brand compared to others).
2. 2. Conversions: There are as many social media conversion metrics as there are ways to define a conversion. A conversion is any predefined action a user can take that the advertiser hopes to encourage. For example, sometimes, just getting a user to like one of your posts might count as a conversion; other times, you might want them to click through a social media ad to your e-commerce site.
3. 3. Customer satisfaction: There are many ways to measure your potential audience's thoughts about your social media strategy. Ideally, you want as much insight into the totality of the customer journey as possible. For instance, receiving a high number of likes on a post is a start, but you might be better off looking at how often followers share your content. In such a circumstance, your customers act as promoters by making referrals on their social media accounts. Alternatively, use social media to survey users about their loyalty to your brand. Ask your followers to rank you from zero to ten to give you a Net Promoter Score. This metric assesses whether or not a customer would recommend your company, service, or product to others.
4. 4. Engagement: Like conversion metrics, social media engagement metrics track how often users interact with your content. A conversion is usually a concrete step the advertiser hopes to encourage specifically. In contrast, engagement can be anything from a “like” to a comment to anything else the user can do in relation to the social media content you release. Look at broader metrics, like your average engagement rate, before moving on to more granular details.

There are many ways that various metrics can bolster your social media efforts more holistically. Here are just five important social media metrics:

1. 1. Amplification rate: When planning any social media marketing strategy, first, attempt to get your message to spread widely, then use the amplification rate to see how far it went. The amp rate shows you the number of times a user shared your post in relation to the size of their social networks.
2. 2. Click-through rate (CTR): Track the number of clicks through any links you provide via your posts. This valuable key performance indicator (KPI) connects your social media platform strategy to your broader marketing and sales goals. Compare the initial click-through rate with the bounce rate—the percentage of users who navigate away from the site after viewing a webpage—to gauge the efficiency of a conversion. For example, if a user clicks on a social media post, heads to your landing page, and then leaves the site before completing a purchase, the problem likely wasn’t with the post itself but the actual website.
3. 3. Cost per conversion rate: Think of the cost per conversion (CPC) rate as a sort of social media return on investment (ROI), which allows you to see how much it costs you to get conversions on a per-click basis.
4. 4. Follower count: When analyzing social media metrics, your number of followers becomes a valuable data set rather than a vanity metric. Use metrics to determine how often your social media followers engage with your content, make conversions, and spread your brand’s updates through their networks. That way, you can focus on building an audience growth rate that fosters both the quantity and quality of your followers.
5. 5. Number of impressions: Find out how often people see your content by looking at the number of impressions any post creates. Keep in mind, impressions are not the same as engagements. An impression simply indicates that a user saw your content, not that they interacted with it in any way. Still, noting your impressions helps you identify the reach of your post over a period of time across various social channels.

Become a better communicator with the MasterClass Annual Membership. Spend some time with Daniel Pink, author of four New York Times bestsellers that focus on behavioral and social sciences, and learn his tips and tricks for perfecting a sales pitch, hacking your schedule for optimal productivity, and more.