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Social media metrics can help you engage your audience, drive brand awareness, and increase sales. By regular monitoring metrics, you can identify effective strategies, see what resonates with your audience, and target areas for improvement. 

Of course, there are a lot of metrics to watch. Depending on the channels and marketing tools your brand uses, you could be dealing with hundreds of numbers. So, which ones should you pay attention to? 

To get started, here are six social media metrics to watch:  

Engagement rates

What it measures: Likes, comments, saves, shares

How it’s measured: Total engagements divided by your total audience x 100

Engagement rates tell you how much your audience interacts with your content. They can be measured on an individual piece of content, a campaign, or an entire account. It’s vital that you measure engagement rates on each of your social channels to determine which channels are driving the most traffic to your website, e-commerce store, or other social media channels. 

Audience growth rate

What it measures: The rate at which your follower numbers are growing on a particular platform 

How it’s measured: New followers (over a set campaign or time period) divided by the total number of followers you started with x 100

Your audience growth rate tells you if particular posts or campaigns are helping you attract new followers, which often signals that your audience finds your content engaging, informative, or entertaining enough to stay regularly informed.

Click-through rate

What it measures: The frequency at which people click on a call to action in your social media post that takes them to your website or ecommerce store

How it’s measured: Total number of clicks on your CTA divided by the number of impressions on that post x 100

This metric can tell you if your CTAs are effective and if your campaign increased interest or awareness. A high click-through rate tied to a high bounce rate may tell you that your prices are too high, your website or e-commerce store is disorganized, or the information you’re requesting on a form is too complicated or time-consuming for your audience.

Conversion rate

What it measures: The frequency at which people click on your post’s call to action and then take action, like registering for a seminar, downloading content, or buying a product 

How it’s measured: The number of conversions divided by the total number of interactions during that same time period

As a top metric, your conversion rate provides insight into how well your post, campaign, and call to action performed. High conversion rates may indicate that your landing page, website, or e-commerce store is well-designed, user-friendly, and well-organized and that you’ve targeted the right audience, set your prices appropriately, and created an enticing product or service that your audience members feel is of value. By looking at conversion rates for each social channel, you’ll be able to determine how much revenue is generated by each social media source, allowing you to adjust your efforts accordingly. 

Bounce rate

What it measures: The rate at which people are leaving your website or e-commerce store without taking action

How it’s measured: Bounced sessions divided by total sessions x 100

If you’re getting a lot of click-throughs from your CTA but finding that customers leave your website or e-commerce store without engaging in any action — such as a purchase, registration, download, or sign-up — you’ll need to do some research to determine the cause. 

Was the CTA not aligned with the customers’ expectations of product cost? Was there insufficient product variety in terms of sizing, colors, or local availability? Did the link take the consumer to the homepage, requiring a search for the product rather than to a specific landing page? Was the form they were asked to fill out upon arriving on your page too complicated or invasive in terms of data collection? 

Do some digging to determine why your post, campaign, or CTA was enough to entice your audience members to click on a link only to have them leave your site immediately.

Average first response time

What it measures: This metric measures how responsive your customer service or marketing team is to questions, reviews, and complaints left on social media 

How it’s measured: Total time needed to respond to customer queries on social media divided by the total number of responses in that period

How do you know if you need a community manager to stay on top of social media comments? Check your average response rate and see where you can improve. Answering a complaint in a timely, polite, and helpful manner can increase customer advocacy, and not responding at all can significantly hurt your chances of retaining the customer, not to mention turning them into a brand detractor. 

To be clear, automated responses don’t count, and your FRT should only include comments left during regular business hours unless your company promises 24/7 customer support on social media. 

While there are plenty more social media metrics to consider, these six are crucial components to get you started. Get familiar with these fundamental metrics, then broaden your net to capture data on metrics like virality rate, video completion rate, social sentiment, amplification rate, and more. 

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Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.

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Managed Services offerings

influencer marketing software Managed Services

 IZEA MANAGED SERVICES 

Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.

Request a proposal

Learn more about our Managed Services offerings

 IZEA MANAGED SERVICES 

Strategy and execution from the company that launched the industry.

Request a proposal

Learn more about our Managed Services offerings