Social media is today’s most powerful marketing tool. In the current digital era, where 55% of consumers learn about new businesses via social media, if you know what approach to follow for social media marketing, then it’s a win for your business.
And to know what is and isn’t working great for you, you can utilize the help of KPIs – the social media metrics that you shouldn’t ignore. To help you understand all about this, we have made a compilation of the top 10 social media KPIs that you should track in 2023. So without further ado, let’s dive right in!
Data speaks great volumes when it comes to proving or measuring your brand’s success on social media. And this is exactly where KPIs come into the picture. KPIs are the measurable metrics that show your social media profile’s performance.
It also allows you to ensure that your social media strategy is actually working and your brand is able to reach its target audience via social media. Plus, you are also able to achieve your business goals.
If you are a social media manager, then KPIs also make it an effortless task for you to report the progress of your social media strategy to your boss or supervisor.
What are Social Media KPIs?
KPIs or Key Performance indicators are used by businesses to determine their performance over a period of time on social media. They help businesses understand whether their current social media strategy is going s planned or if it requires improvements.
These are basically tracked data related to a brand’s presence on individual social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram or across all social outlets collectively.
You or your social media team should always try to create smart social media goals. Plus, your KPIs should be just as smart. They should be as clear and specific as possible. In addition, they should be measurable.
You or your social media team should always try to create smart social media goals. Plus, your KPIs should be just as smart. They should be as clear and specific as possible. In addition, they should be measurable. For example, during a monthly check-in, you should be able to decide how close you are to fulfilling the set goal.
Why is it Important to Track KPIs?
Measuring the correct KPIs is essential for the success of businesses in the social media world. They are metrics that help you ensure that your social media strategy is working towards achieving your set goals and is effective. To achieve greater online visibility and boost your business’s sales rate, tracking the right KPIs is indeed super important.
With the data you get from tracking KPIs, you can understand how well your social media strategy is doing and whether it needs improvements or not. You are also able to make better-informed decisions as well. Hence, enabling you to achieve your business goals with ease.
How to set Smart Social Media KPIs?
KPIs can only truly help you boost your presence on social media if you set them in an effective way and then monitor them in the same way too.
To set an effective KPI, you can ensure that you do the following;
- Clearly state the objective of the KPI.
- Pick out the KPIs that are most relevant to your social media growth and focus on them.
- Share your selected KPIs with your team. Ask for their feedback as well.
- Measure your brand’s current performance.
- Then see whether the KPIs you have chosen to keep in top focus actually will help your brand reach the set new goals via social media or not.
- Decide on the time frame for tracking your KPIs. This will help you understand the actual growth pattern of your social media profiles.
In addition, You can measure a ton of different metrics/KPIs on social media, but with ROI in mind, you really only need to worry about the ones that answer the following questions:
- How many of your social media fans are asking about your product or service?
- How many of the users actually are becoming customers?
- Are you reaching the targeted people?
- Are you engaging with targeted people?
Everything else is really just a vanity metric. That being said, there are four main areas your social media KPIs should be focusing on: engagement, reach, leads, and customers. As these are the main KPIs that help you see how well your brand is being recognized on social media platforms.
Top 10 Social Media KPIs You Should Track in 2023
Although all the social media KPIs are super important for businesses to know whether their social media strategy is working or not. Here are some of the top ones that you should definitely track in 2023;
1. Impressions
Impressions show the number of times your post was visible in someone’s social media feed or timeline. It does not necessarily mean the individual who viewed the post just noticed it or actually read it. Impressions are those social media KPIs that show you the number of times your post or profile has been visited or seen. It only totals the views and does not distinguish between unique social media user accounts.
2. Reach
The “Reach” KPIs calculate how many users come across your social media channels. Reach and engagement is two separate things; this is one thing that you should keep in mind here. For Reach, you can think of it as quantity measurement. This data shows the existing and potential audience of your social media. In addition, it tells you about your audience’s growth rate over a period of time and your brand’s online visibility.
3. Engagement rate
The engagement social media KPIs basically calculate the quality of interactions with your social media followers. These KPIs show whether your audience is actually connecting with what you have to say and are willing to interact with your brand/social media profile.
The engagement rate includes the number of likes, comments, applause rate, etc., that your social media is receiving.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
4. Audience growth rate
One of the most important aspects of knowing whether your current social media strategy is actually working is to ensure that you’re gaining followers and not losing them. And this is something that you can know with the help of the audience growth rate social media KPI.
This KPI shows how your follower count is altering over time. So if a user views your account four times with the same profile, then that would count for four impressions.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
5. Net promoter score (NPS)
This NPS metric estimates your follower’s loyalty to your brand. The way to utilize this metric is to use a poll or survey on your brand’s social media profiles and ask one question: How likely would you be to suggest this product to a friend?
Give your audience the chance to answer using a numerical scale or descriptors like unlikely, likely, or very likely. And this data can show you the number of “loyal” followers you have.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
6. Conversion rate
Conversion rate is the social media KPI that shows the number of users who perform the actions mentioned in your CTA. It also shows a comparison of these users to the total amount of clicks that post has gotten.
If your post has a high conversion rate, then that indicates that your posts are delivering something valuable and useful to your audience. And this is one of the main things that indicate your current social media strategy is working well.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
7. Cost-per-click (CPC)
These social media KPIs show the amount you pay to social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter for each click on your sponsored posts. You can track these KPIs to know whether the amount you’re investing in the Ads is actually worth it or not.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
8. Applause Rate
This KPI tracks only the positive interactions made with your content on social platforms. This includes likes, favoriting a post, saves, retweets, etc. you can really understand how well your content is performing on social media. You can also observe whether your brand’s social media visibility is increasing in true means or not.
Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
9. Amplification rate
Amplification rate is the number of your followers sharing your content with their followers. This social media KPI includes everything from shares and retweets to repins. A high amplification rate indicates that your followers want to be connected with your brand. Hence, proving that your social media strategy is perfect. Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
10. Click-through rate (CTR)
This is the percentage of users who have viewed your posts and have also clicked on the CTA (Call to Action) included in it. This social media KPI helps you see how eye-catchy and inerting your content really is. It helps you see whether your audience’s attention is being grabbed by your content or not. Mentioned below is an easy formula for tracking social media KPI;
How to track Social Media KPIs efficiently?
To track your social media KPIs in a smart, hassle-free way, here are a few ways to follow;
1. The Native Solution
To natively track social media KPIs, you can use the built-in analytics feature of social media platforms. It is a free and easy way to track your KPI. It is definitely a great option for social media strategists and managers.
You can track the KPIs using Facebook insights, Instagram insights, Twitter analytics, youtube analytics, LinkedIn analytics, etc. almost all prominent social media sites offer basic analytics. And from here, you can track your social media performance with ease.
However, this native method is not really ideal for teams who are managing several social media accounts. The simple reason is that switching between multiple platforms and profiles can be a hassle and is pretty time-consuming as well.
2. Track your social media KPIs with SocialBu.
If you are a social media team who has to manage several accounts on different social media platforms, then using a smart social media management tool might save you a lot of hassle. With tools like SocialBu, you can get access to all your social profile’s analytics from a single dashboard.
The dashboard is pretty simple to use as well. Not only collecting data but sharing and sending it is also an effortless task with SocialBu.
There is no need for manual data input, and this saves a lot of your time as well. You can also create smart analytics reports for each social media platform and share them with your team with ease. Here is all you get with SocialBu’s analytics feature;
Dashboard
The Dashboard provides you with an overview of your social media accounts performance. It comprises of main metrics of other reports sections so that a user can quickly get an idea of what’s going on at just one glance.
Content Performance Report
Users can see how their content is performing, from the top section in the “Analyze Top Posts” feature. You can see the engagement received on each of your published posts. This will immensely help you understand the true performance of your social media content.
You can view multiple engagement metrics from here, like impressions, reactions, engagement, etc., in numbers with easy-to-understand graphs and charts. It is a detailed report showing data/charts/metrics about likes, comments, views, impressions, etc.
Social Account Performance Report
This report shows the performance of your social media accounts with details like follower growth, published posts, etc. Plus, it compares them with different social platforms’ stats. So with this report, you can see your individual social account’s performance over a period of time as well as compare your social media accounts to see on which platform you have gained the best results so far.
Network Performance
This is a network-specific report meaning it focuses on showing analysis separately for each platform. For example, it has Facebook-related metrics for the Facebook account, then Instagram analytics for Instagram, and so on.
Complete Analysis
It is a combination of content, social accounts, and network performance report. With this feature, you get to see the full report of your social media profiles and get a complete analysis.
Team Performance
It includes stats like the number of posts created by a team, team members, and overall engagement. This report is meant to show how your team is performing, who writes the most or the best posts, etc.
Final Verdict
By tracking social media KPIs you can truly understand whether your current social media strategy is performing well or not, and whether you are achieving your set business goals via your social media strategy or not.
So, overall you can see just how important tracking relevant social media KPIs is. To make the tracking procedure hassle-free and efficient, you can utilize the help of smart social media management and scheduling tools like SocialBu.
With the analytics feature offered by SocialBu, you can get a lot of smart reports on your social media profile’s performance, and this way you can easily see if your socials are on the right track. To learn about all SocialBu has to offer, start your free trial today! And watch your social media grow at an amazingly rapid rate.
