Dmytro Spilka 8 Social Media Metrics You Must Track for Better Strategy Dmytro Spilka
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When it comes to connecting with your audience, social platforms have proved to be a more than a reliable platform that can yield a business a number of rewards if used in the right way.
Regardless of whether it's Twitter, Facebook or any other social network, more and more customers are getting to know their brands in ways that just weren’t possible before, while businesses are able to offer more personalised service.
However, it shouldn’t be assumed that merely setting up a few social networks will get you the desired results, as it can take a lot of time and effort to ensure that your social media posts are making the right kind of noise around your audience.
As such, many businesses will look at the metrics of the social media activity, and use it for decision making and business planning when moving forward in 2017.
What metrics you use could differ from business to business, but the following pointers list metrics that must be tracked for you to get the best results from your social networking, thus gaining more exposure and sales.
1. Track the Growth of Your Followers
Whether they’re called followers, fans or page likes, these are the people that have taken an interest in you and what you have to offer, so it makes sense that a business will always be looking to increase its followers. Depending on the social network being used, it is possible to get a detailed analysis of what time periods and content performs best when it comes to gaining new followers. This can help you structure a more stable social media strategy moving forward.
To check the number of page likes on Facebook, navigate to your business page and click the 'Insights' tab, then, hit 'page likes' button. You will be presented with the following dashboard.
To check you twitter followers stats, go to Twitter Analytics. As soon as you log-in, you will be redirected to the following dashboard:
2. Track Any Likes and Reactions for Your Posts
Much like tracking the growth of our followers, we should also be ascertaining as to how certain posts are being received by the social media community.
Simply creating content and not monitoring its success will have you feeling around in the dark when it comes to finding success on social media.
Again, each platform will have its own analytics that can help you gauge just how popular your current content is, and whether any changes are required moving forward. You may even find that a few simple tweaks will allow your content to gain more traction when being shared among different social networks.
3. What Content Is Being Shared?
When your content is shared, it shows that someone found it of value. This can be due to it having a personal connection with them or that they found the content helpful. This can help you determine as to how future content should be crafted.
If you find you have success with a number of different topics, then use this to your advantage and create a content calendar that will deliver fresh content for each topic on a set day. It can also be beneficial to ensure that the content on offer is evergreen, as this means that there will be a potential for an ongoing stream of traffic. You could even look to repurpose some content and update it when needed.
Twitter Analytics has a handy feature that shows a top tweet and a top mention for a given month. Here is an example:
4. Determine Your Social Media Reach
When tackling the world of social media, you have to remember that there is so much scope for your content to be shared.
As well as sharing content with your followers, you also have the potential to share content with their connections too. Offering engaging and immersive content could mean you’re reaching a wider audience as a result. Facebook will be able to show such information within its 'Insights' tab, while Twitter users will explore the ‘Impressions’ tab.
5. When is the Right Time to Share?
Although it may surprise you to know, the time that content is shared on social media can make all the difference as to whether a particular post is popular or not. In this regard, it can be useful to look at what time of the day your social media posts create the most buzz.
From here, you should ensure that when you share content moving forward, you are ensuring that you are posting during optimal times. Just simply posting content with no strategy could mean that your content falls flat as a result.
6. Monitor Acknowledgments Made Via Social Media
When you’re being spoken about on social networks, it shows that you are making some kind of impact. Best practices explain that you must keep track of any mentions that occur on social media platforms to get an idea of what kind of people are paying an interest in your company. Those who are using Facebook will receive a notification, and the same will occur on Twitter.
7. Examine Your Audience Demographic
Where your visitors are coming from can also be an important part of your social marketing strategy, as it allows you to ascertain as to what platforms are working in your best interests. You can also ensure that your paid ads are having the desired impact, as you can target them towards your most active demographic.
Evidently, your demographic could change over time, it’s always worthwhile ensuring you adhere to your metrics, or you could find that your content is not as popular as you’d like.
Both, Facebook & Twitter offer a decent analysis of your demographics. To see your Facebook's breakdown, hit the 'People' tab.
For Twitter, go to 'Audiences' tab.
8. Track Social Referral Traffic
As well as all the other metrics mentioned above, tracking social media traffic to your website is simply a necessity. No digital strategy can be effective unless traffic sources are analyzed efficiently. For some websites, Facebook might the main source of traffic, while for others, Stumble Upon could be the gold mine.
To check your social referral traffic, log-in to your Google Analytics and navigate to 'Acquisitions' > 'Social' > 'Overview'.
Scroll down to see a breakdown of social traffic from different social networks:
To Conclude
Ensuring you stay on top of your social network metrics will ensure that you have a clear idea of how to market your posts, while securing new followers as you go. There will be times when you need to make changes to your strategy, and as long as you monitor your metrics, the changes needed should be minimal.
