Social Media Metrics & Analytics; Measuring Success

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So I was speaking at a conference this week, when a marketer from a non-profit asked me a question we’ve all heard before, just in different words- whether from someone else, or to ourselves; “I’ve been doing Facebook posts for 6 months now, but I can’t determine if it’s increase our donations.”

Typical question- sound familiar? C-suite executives are still trying to grapple with these questions along with their marketing people. Remember gang, it’s still called “new media” meaning that how to utilize these platforms to generate leads and sales is still being evolved.

It’s easy to get caught up in the hype. 4-5 years ago- a number of PR folk and marketing consultants discovered Twitter, then Facebook. It was- “let’s learn this, let’s become good at this, let’s write books, let’s write blogs, let’s do speaking engagements”

No matter what you read, who you follow, or what you hear, you and your management team still need to be convinced that social media activity does indeed have a contribution to business growth. Social media is unlike any other medium, yet we still have to substantiate the time and effort to manage it, produce content, and measure the data.

Here’s a recent CMO survey conducted by Duke University and commissioned by the American Marketing Association.

CMO’s are tracking social media by website visits and page views, then repeat visits, then the NUMBER of followers or friends, then conversion rate. What’s not judged by these guys is the quality of your content and the engagement/virality rates that can lead to website visits.

Social Media Metrics-CMO


Here’s the key marketing cycle of social media…if your content is good, and your target audiences share it or comment, and those who get exposed to the content click on links within that post/tweet, audiences, and hopefully prospects, visit your website to learn more about you, then it is hoped that those prospects are eventually converted into a lead or sale (via lead nurturing if you’re lead generation firm, or purchase if you’re e-commerce.)

So what we’re saying here is if you’re social media engagement metrics are growing, it increases the likelihood of a clicked link opportunity to your website, landing page, or blog. That’s exposure; and that can lead to a conversion.

What engagement metrics are we speaking about? Ones that prove that your content is engaging enough to your followers, fans, and connections. Below are a few of the engagement metrics you should be looking at. Caution- there are no ideal benchmarks here. Every business is different. Of importance is that you start keep a custom dashboard, and begin measuring this stuff weekly of monthly, and hopefully your trends increase; otherwise you’ll need to reevaluate your content strategy.

Twitter

Question: Is My Message Relevant to My Followers?

Answer:

(Active Followers/ Total Followers) X 100 = Engaged Follower Rate

*An active follower is the number of followers who retweeted you or mentioned you in a tweet in a given time period)

Question: Am I Engaging with Followers?

Answer:

((Retweets Given + @replies)/ Total Followers)) x 100 = Conversion Rate

Question: Is My Content Relevant?

Answer:

(Retweets Received/ # of Tweets) x 100 = Twitter Amplification Rate

Question: Is My Content Influential?

Answer:

((Mentions + Retweets Received + Favorited Posts)/# of Tweets)) x 100 = Content Influence Rate

Question: Is My Content Attracting Website/Blog Visitors?

Answer:

Original Content Post Clicks/ Total Original Content Posts = Clicks Per Post

Facebook

Question: Is My Business Page Growing this Month?

Answer:

(New Fans – Lost Fans)/ Previous Month’s New Fans = Fan Growth Rate

Question: Are My Posts Viral?

Answer:

(People Talking About This/Organic Reach) x 100 = Post Virality Rate

Question: Are My Posts Being Shared?

Answer:

# of Post Shares / # of Posts = Facebook Amplification Rate

Question: Are My Fans (or Likes) Engaged With My Posts?

Answer:

((People Talking About This + Post Consumptions)/ # of Page Fans) x 100 = Fan Engagement Rate

Question: Is My FB Content Relevant?

Answer:

(People Talking About This / # of Fans) x 100 = Post Engagement Rate

Question: Is My FB Content Attracting Website/Blog Visitors?

Answer:

Original Content Post Clicks (Content on your blog/website)/ Total Original Content Posts = Clicks Per Post

While these social media engagement metrics are being tracked, you of course need to measure social media traffic to your website or blog via Google Analytics or a similar platform. You’ll need to track:

  • # of Conversion per Channel
  • Assisted Conversions versus Last Interaction Conversions
  • Site Engagement Stats (Page Views, Time on Site)
  • Revenue Per Channel
  • Return-On-Investment

All of these metrics and more, with examples and Google Analytics detail, can be downloaded for free from our social media analytics page.

I hope this post helps shed some light into social media measurement for your business. Notice how I never mentioned amounts of followers or likes. Amounts, although important from an overall growth standpoint, are not what you generally should be measuring. It’s how you engage with those likes and followers, and the quality of content. But you know that, right?

How are you measuring social media? Does top management and sales have buy-in?

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Paul Mosenson
Owner of NuSpark Marketing Helps B2B and B2C companies market themselves through integrated tactics, (traditional advertising, internet advertising, SEO, social media), conversions, and sales through lead nurturing/marketing automation.

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