19 Social Media KPIs You Should Be Tracking
Most businesses today cannot function without a social media department. Social media acts as an important link between businesses and their customers. It helps businesses market their products and services, generate business leads, engage with the target audience and get their feedback.
Every business with an active social media presence is run by a team of social media experts responsible for generating creative ideas for social media posts, writing and posting them across different social media platforms, tracking user engagement over time and analyzing audience behavior and demographics.
But how do you know if your current social media marketing strategy effectively brings ROI for your business? That’s when you need KPIs for your social media strategy. KPI or Key Performance Indicator evaluates performance for a definite objective over a specific period.
Measuring social media KPIs can help you understand if the performance of your social media department is satisfactory enough to meet your business objectives. Remember that your social media KPIs can vary campaign-to-campaign or depend on the social media platform. This will help you to create SMART goals for your team to achieve.
Specific: Be specific about your goals. Do you want to increase your Facebook follower count by 15% next month, or do you want to increase the click-through rate for a specific landing page by 25% in the next three months?
Measurable: Ensure that your goals are measurable. If you aim to increase your Facebook followers by 15% in a month, you should be able to track the progress every week to get an idea of whether you are close to reaching your target number by the end of the month.
Achievable: Set your goals within an achievable limit. Do you wish to achieve 5X Twitter followers in a month? Plan something realistic; how about increasing your Twitter followers by 50% in six months?
Relevant: Ensure that your social media KPIs fulfill the larger goals of your business.
Timely: The timeframe that you should set to achieve a particular KPI.
SMART KPIs will help your social media marketing team commit to the goals and work consistently to achieve them. Different social media metrics could be relevant to your business in one way or another. Try sorting KPIs into these broad categories to ensure that your KPIs align with your company’s overall goals and objectives.
Reach KPIs
Reach KPI measures the number of users who come across your social channels. Reach and engagement is different; therefore, the reach KPI will measure users who passively interact with your channel. Reach is a quantitative measurement that measures your existing and potential audience, brand awareness and growth.
1. Impressions
This measures the number of times your social post was visible to someone’s timeline or feed. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the people who viewed your post have also read it.
2. Follower Count
It measures the number of followers your social channel has at a given time.
3. Audience Growth Rate
Audience growth rate measures how follower count changes over time. Given below is a simple formula to measure the audience growth rate percentage:
New followers/ Total followers X 100 = Growth Rate Percentage
4. Reach
Reach measures the number of people who have seen your post since it has gone live. Here’s how to calculate your reach percentage:
Post View/ Total followers X 100 = Post Reach Percentage
5. Potential Reach
This is the measure of the number of people who could see your post over a period of time. Say, if a follower shares your post within their network, then the potential reach for that post could be anywhere from 2% to 5%. Here’s how to calculate it:
Total number of mentions X Followers of account that mentions you= Potential Reach
6. Social Share of Voice
This metric measures the number of people who mention your brand compared to those who mention your competitors. The percentage of social share of voice can be calculated as:
Total number of mentions of your brand/ Total mentions (Your mentions + Competitor mentions) X 100= Social Share of Voice percentage.
Social Media Engagement KPIs
KPIs for social media engagement measure your interaction quality with your social media followers. It analyzes whether the audience is willing to listen to what you have to say and interact to connect with your brand.
7. Likes
The number of times your social media followers interact with your social posts by clicking on the like button.
8. Comments
It measures the number of times your followers comment on your social posts.
9. Applause Rate
Applause rate considers positive interactions with your social audiences like saves, retweets, and other positive interactions. This is how to calculate the applause rate:
Total Approval actions/ Total Followers X 100= Applause Rate Percentage.
10. Average Engagement Rate
This metric measures how engaging your social posts are to the audience on average. The metric is calculated by dividing all kinds of engagements a post receives, such as the likes, comments, shares, saves, etc., by the total number of followers on your social channel.
Likes+Comments+Shares/ Followers X 100= Average Engagement Rate Percentage.
11. Amplification Rate
Amplification Rate measures the rate of followers who share your content with their own followers. A high amount of retweets, reshares, and repins indicate that your followers want to be associated with your brand. Here’s how to calculate the amplification rate percentage:
Total Post Shares/ Total Followers X 100= Amplification Rate Percentage
Conversion KPIs
Conversion KPIs measure the number of social interactions that turn into website visits, purchases, sign-ups or other desired actions. Conversion metrics show the effectiveness of your social media strategies and whether it brings the desired results.
12. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the number of users who perform the desired actions outlined in your social media call-to-action (CTA) compared to the total number of clicks on that given post. CTAs can vary from visiting a landing page, subscribing to a mailing list, making a purchase, etc. A high conversion rate signifies that your social post is valuable enough to make your audience act. Here is how to calculate it:
Conversion/ Total Clicks X 100= CTR Percentage.
13. Click-Through Rate (CTR)
CTR measures the percentage of people who viewed your post and clicked on the CTA it had. It measures whether your content is effective enough to motivate your audience to act. CTR can be calculated as:
Total Clicks/ Total Impressions X 100= CTR Percentage.
14. Bounce Rate
Bounce rate measures the number of people who clicked on a link in your social post but left without taking any action. A high bounce rate signifies that your content is not engaging enough to keep your audience hooked on your content.
15. Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost per click (CPC) is the amount you pay per click to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter when people click on your sponsored social post. You need to track CPC to determine if the amount you are spending is worth the investment. You can calculate it using:
Total Ad Spend/ Total Measured Click X 1000= CPC
16. Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
CPM is the amount paid every time 1000 people come across your sponsored social post. Here’s how you can calculate it:
Total Ad Spend/ Total Ad Impressions X 1000= Cost Per Thousand
Customer Satisfaction KPIs
Customer Satisfaction KPIs measure how customers perceive your brand. Their attitude of interaction with your business on social media is direct feedback for your business.
17. Customer Testimonials
Customer testimonials are the reviews posted by your customers on social media channels and Google My Business to express how they feel about your products and services. Ratings are also effective in determining how customers feel about your business.
18. Customer Satisfaction Score (CSat)
This metric measures how happy and satisfied your customers are with your products. This data can be gathered through polls and surveys on social media platforms.
19. Net Promoter Score (NPS)
This is the metric used to measure your customer’s brand loyalty. You can measure this by surveying your social channel, asking,” how likely would you recommend this product to your friends?” Allow the respondents to answer between “Very likely,” “Likely,” and “Unlikely.”
Once you have set your social media KPIs, it is time to track them using built-in analytics features on different social media platforms. These metrics are free and easy to use. All major social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube have basic analytics that allows you to track your performance.
If you want to compile social analytics from different platforms into a single and comprehensive report, you might consider using professional social media management tools or platforms.
Let us know which KPIs are your primary choice for tracking your social media performance in the comments section.
