Top 3 Most Important Metrics in Social Media Marketing

Just like the transmuting winds, technology has evolved across the globe. This change has opened arenas for different businesses by bringing tools and platforms of social media marketing.
 

As a result of this, everyone we know has landed on social media and the world has become a more connected place. Our social circle has expanded and businesses are equally taking advantage of this fact.
 

For businesses, social media is one of most wide platforms for reaching out to the customer and letting them know about their brand and products. But in this over competing market scenario that is constantly persistent, businesses need to constantly keep a check on how they are performing on the social upfront. This is accomplished by the social media metrics.
 

Social media metrics help in measure your business performance across various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others. Some of the marketers who are aware of these metrics constantly keeping an eye on their Twitter followers, retweets, Facebook page followers etc.
 

But there is more to what meets the eye. Other than these, there are a few social media marketing metrics that help a business conclude their success or failure on social media platforms.

“We have technology, finally, that for the first time in human history allows people to really maintain rich connections with much larger numbers of people.” –  Pierre Omidyar
 

Social media can be extraordinarily effective for businesses who use it the right way and can also prove to be destructive otherwise. The metrics, on the other hand, provide some interesting insights to a business's existence on the social media.
 

So, if you are worried about which social media metrics to never lose grip of, here are the top 3 Most Important Metrics in Social Media Marketing:
 

One of the easiest metrics to measure is the volume. By volume, I am referring to the size of all the conversations happening about your campaign on the social media. Volume can be a great indicator of the amount of interest that your campaign is being able to generate.
 

Volume can be measured because people talk about god and bad things that they come across. They seldom talk about what’s not interesting to them.
 

Don Crowther has correctly said that

“People want to do business with you because you help them get what they want. They don’t do business with you to help you get what you want.”

So if your business focuses on providing value to your customers, they will talk about you.
 

By measuring the volume, you are measuring the retweets or discussions about your brand on the social media. It is important to note changes in these since they tell you about the thing about your brand that the people are most interested in.
 

When you see your campaign volume in an upward trend, try to figure out at what time or on which days it is highest. This will help you decide the right time to target your audience on the social media in order to generate maximum messages or discussions about your brand.
 

For example, Facebook’s ‘people talking about this’ is a measure of volume.
 

Reach is another important metric to keep a track of, which helps you decide how widely distributed is your social media campaign. Reach basically helps you understand the context of your customer. It measures the spread of your social media conversation.
 

In other words, it helps you know how many customers is your social media post reaching a particular moment. It is every business's desire to witness a huge number of the reach metrics. Though it is important, reach on its alone cannot decide the success or failure of any social media campaign.
 

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Measuring your potential audience size can help you estimate what percentage of your target audience, are you able to reach on social media. You can also keep a track of various sources from where these discussions or figures are being obtained. Reach as a metric can help you calculate the engagement metrics that we are going to talk about next.
 

Lori Taylor says,

“Going viral is not an outcome; it’s a happening. Sometimes it happens; sometimes it doesn’t. Just remember, fans are vanity and sales are sanity.”
 

The engagement metrics answer questions like, “How are people participating in the conversation about your brand? What are they doing to spread your content and engage with the topic?”
 

Since not all publicity is good publicity you also need to know that nature of the conversation that is being talked about your brand.
 

Tweet, Re-tweets and Facebook shares are a way of knowing who is sharing your content and where. You can easily get to know if your brand is engaging enough discussions or interactions on social media as you initially planned to.
 

Various tools available in the market can help you determine the sentiment of the conversations going around the social media about your brand. This metric can help you in pre-planning for your response in return to the positive or negative sentiment being talked about you on the social media.
 

If your tweets or facebook shares indicate a negative response or unhappy customer data, you can learn from it and know about the areas where you need to improve as a business.
 

Susan Cooper writes about a business's’ presence on social media as, “Engage, Enlighten, Encourage and especially…just be yourself! Social media is a community effort, everyone is an asset.” 
 

Sandi Krakowski mentions, “Lead people with what they want. – Lead with what they’ve already said. – Lead people from where they’re at. – Lead them with the things that concern them.”  
 

So, start measuring your social media metrics and understand how well your campaigns are doing on different social media platforms. Though measuring the follower engagement is good, knowing the success of your social media campaign is highly subjective.
 

In order to get a head start measuring these 3 metrics as early for your business so that you get a check for being on the right track. Since there is always a room for improvement, try to learn where you are going wrong with the help of these metrics.
 

Always remember that consistency and preparation are the keys to your social media marketing success.