The Most Important Social Media KPIs You Should Track at All Times

Did you know that seven out of ten Americans say they regularly use social media? These days, social media isn’t just connecting with friends and strangers.

It’s a valid way for influencers and brands to connect with their audience, make new customers and market their products. Businesses have been using traditional KPIs to measure their performance for a while.

But, you can also use social media KPIs for your digital marketing efforts. So, what are the most important social media KPIs you should be tracking? In this article, we’ll be going over some of the major ones. Let’s get started!

What Are Social Media KPIs?

Before we dive into all the important KPIs that you should know about let’s first discuss what they are. KPI is an acronym that stands for Key Performance Indicators.

Businesses use KPIs all the time to take stock of their performance over some time. This helps them determine whether their goals are being met. If the goals aren’t being met, then something needs to change.

Social media KPIs are specific indicators that relate to a company's social media marketing strategy. The data that relates to these KPIs needs to be tracked across every social media platform that you use.

KPI One: Social Media Reach

Reach in social media refers to the number of people that come across your account or content. Reach is typical of quantitative measurement. It doesn’t measure how many people are interacting with your channel.

Rather, it’s concerned strictly with measuring your existing and potential audience. Some common reach KPIs include things like:

• Follower count

• Audience growth rate (new followers divided by total followers multiplied by 100)

• Impressions or the number of times you post was visible on someone’s feed

You can also calculate the specific reach of each post that you do. To do this find the total amount of post views.

Then, divide it by the number of followers you have. After that, divide it by 100. You’ll be left with the reach percentage of your specific post.

KPI Two: Social Media Engagement

Reach KPIs can sometimes be misleading on social media. After all, just because your post is visible to someone doesn’t mean that they perceived it.

And, reading something is a big difference between liking, commenting, or sharing. To measure these things we use engagement KPIs. If social media reach KPIs are concerned with quantity, then engagement is concerned with quality.

After all, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have if none of them are interacting with your brand. Some common engagement KPIs include things like:

• Likes

• Comments

• Applauses or positive reactions

You can measure these things by using an average engagement rate. To do this you first need to add up all the likes, comments, and shares on a post. Then, divide that figure by the number of followers you have.

Multiply it by 100 and you’re left with the average engagement rate percentage. Have trouble with engagement? Consider services like stormlikes.com.

It allows you to purchase engagement for your channel. It’s not a permanent solution, but often it’s enough to get the ball rolling. You should also focus on making killer content.

KPI Three: Conversion

Conversion KPIs deal with social media interactions that turned into the desired action. For example, maybe they visited your website, signed up for a newsletter, or completed a purchase.

Click-through-rate is a popular conversion KPI. You can find this by dividing your total clicks by the total impressions. Then multiply it by 100 to get a CTR percentage.

You can find the conversion rate by dividing conversions by total click, then multiplying by 100. If you want to measure the effectiveness of different types of marketing, you should also consider measuring the cost per click, or CPC.

KPI Four: Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is harder to measure than other types of KPIs. That’s because it’s difficult to put these figures into quantifiable numbers.

One way you can do it is by measuring the number of positive reviews or testimonials. You can also try implementing a customer satisfaction score after purchases.

This asks customers to rate their service on a scale of one to ten. It’s not the most accurate KPI you can choose (many people may choose not to answer).

But, it’s one of the few reliable social media metrics for measuring customer satisfaction.

How Do You Set KPIs?

We've gone over some of the various KPIs you should be keeping track of with your social media presence.

But, how do you go about setting goals for these KPIs? We recommend using the SMART method when crafting your goals. SMART is an acronym that stands for:

• Specific

• Measurable

• Attainable

• Relevant

• Timely

Let’s start with specific. Make sure you’re as clear with your KPI as possible. Your KPI should also be measurable. Things like customer moods are hard to quantify. So, stick to traditional metrics.

Next, your goal should be attainable. No unrealistic KPIs like getting one million followers by the end of the week. Your KPIs should be relevant in that they relate to your overarching business goals.

If you’re focusing on sales, your KPIs should be concerned with engagement. Finely, they should have a clear time frame for completion.

Once that period expires, you can see whether or not your KPI aligns with your goals. If they don’t, then you will need to adjust your strategy.

Enjoy Learning Social Media KPIs? Keep Reading

We hope this article helped you learn some of the important social media KPIs you should consider tracking. Ultimately, the right KPIs for your needs will depend on your specific business.

So, make a list of all the ones that apply to you. Then, start making a strategy to accurately track them. Did you appreciate this educational content? Keep exploring our website to find hundreds more just like it.