Measuring the success of a social media marketing plan includes measures of

22 May 2020

When it comes to success in social media marketing, it may seem like every competitor out there is trying to grab your customers’ attention. While it may seem a bit daunting at first, gaining traction on social media doesn’t have to be difficult if you know which key performance indicators (KPI) to look at. By understanding volume, reach, engagement, and influence, you and your marketing team will be well on your way to learning how to measure success on social media.

How to Calculate KPIs

To set and monitor effective social media KPIs, start with establishing an objective to reach specific business goals based on KPIs for social media. Once you evaluate the importance of tracking all digital marketing KPIs, analyze the current performance to compare to the growth you make through social media strategy. This way you can review the social media KPIs with a forward-thinking strategy as the business experiences changes.

When learning how to measure social media marketing performance, your KPIs for social media tell you exactly which direction to go with your content. The focus of your team will be well informed with data and social media trends leading to your desired success in social media management.

Measure Your Audience Value

Audience growth rate speaks to the volume of the data providing useful insight going well beyond the vanity metrics a business account has. However, it plays a vital part in illuminating how to measure social media marketing performance.

Volume also refers to the number of social mentions and brand-related hashtags circulating throughout social media channels. In other words, you want to measure how many people are talking about your brand online.

Social mentions can be done by directly tagging your company by its username, mentioning your brand with a tag, and also by using hashtags that are specific to your brand.

Measure Your Brand Reach

The number of people interacting with your content and showing brand loyalty will be different from those who come across your content based on the constructs of your marketing campaign strategy. Brand reach alone does not reveal everything. However, it signifies how many users can potentially be exposed to your content helping to better contextualize other metrics of engagement.

Reach is measured by how many people saw your post or paid social media ad campaign. There are three different types of reach:

• Organic Reach – The number of people who saw your content in their newsfeed because they follow you
• Viral Reach – The number of people who saw your content from sharing, suggested posts, or content hashtags
• Paid Reach – The number of people who saw your sponsored ad content

Organic reach seems to be the metric that business owners and marketing teams want to hit. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for posts from business accounts to reach users’ news feeds. New algorithm changes on many social platforms now favor posts that have been shared by friends and family.

Measure Your Engagement

When you’re thinking about how to measure social media marketing performance, social media engagement is a major factor. This goes beyond likes and even comments. Sharing is another valuable form of engagement that can help any company boost its online presence through viral reach.

If you desire to stand out with engagement on your social media posts, consider reshaping your marketing strategy. Dynamic content that encourages engagement will be the factor within your strategy that can directly lead to potential sales.

Measure Your Influence

One of the final KPIs for social media you should look at when you’re learning how to measure social media success is how much influence your brand has over your audience.

Measure your influence by looking at the frequency of website visitors coming in from your social media business accounts. To rank higher in brand influence, post scroll-stopping content that excites your audience. Contests, giveaways, and polls are a great way to kick off interactions with your audience.

How Often to Measure Success on Social Media

When reviewing methods for how to make your social media stand out, see where patterns and other developments are happening as you define your cadences. What social media KPIs would you like to track weekly, monthly, or bimonthly? Defining cadence categories will reveal progress over a certain period as well as show where to make adjustments early on to lead to a successful marketing campaign.

The Importance of Measuring Social Media KPIs

Knowing how to measure success on social media is important due to wanting to promote increased positive interactions with a brand. The quality of content reflects a brand’s reputation and should support business goals. By fostering positive interactions from quality content, the brand can measure the benefits of social media interactions through KPIs.

The way KPIs for social media can grow your business will be through the goals established within the marketing campaign. Social media KPIs will show your team if the business’s social media marketing strategy is effective and matching those previously set goals.

If your brand or a client’s brand involves managing multiple accounts on numerous platforms, automating social media strategies with a corresponding management solution platform will make tracking data easier.

Tools like SharpSpring Social make collecting, analyzing, and reporting data not only easy but effective. Our tool allows for customizable collections of data for flexibility with your marketing methods when aiming for your target engagement. Success in social media impacts the growth of a business as digital transformation takes place in this increasingly growing social consumer environment.

Now that you understand how to measure success on social media, you can report and enhance metrics for how to measure the social media success of a brand.

If you’re looking for an impactful digital marketing tool, talk to us. We’d love to hear from you. If you want more information on how SharpSpring can help you achieve social media marketing success, contact us or get a demo.

Frequently Asked Social Media KPI Questions

What are social media KPIs?

Social media KPIs are the metrics that indicate the effectiveness of a business’s social media marketing strategy. The data is collected from the company’s presence on any active social platforms. These KPIs should reflect overarching business goals for the company.

How to measure social media success?

Measuring your social media success will start with recognizing your overall objective, aligning what you’re measuring and why, then reviewing in order to make adjustments to goals. Quantity measurements can be extracted from numbers based on impressions, follower count, audience growth rate, or potential reach for example. These metrics can be easily digestible by compiling information into custom report(s).

How to Measure Social Media Success is part 2 of 4 in our new “Measuring Marketing Success” series! Check back soon for our next installment.

How to measure the success of social media marketing campaigns?

What are the 4 metrics used to track and analyze their social media activities?

What is your primary measure of success on social media?

What are the 4 KPIs for social media?