The Importance of Social Media Metrics
Social media managers need to have a strategy of what they post and when. There are many factors that come into play when a social media manager is creating content to post. They need to understand who their audience is that they are trying to reach and inform with their post. Another important factor is knowing the time to post and on what platform is best for each message. The same post might do better on one platform versus another because the audience can be different between platforms. How does a social media manager stay informed of the information needed to create content for posts? They use analytics!
Importance of Social Media analytics
Tells you about your audience
In a review of analytics on social media platforms, you can learn the demographics of your audience. You can discover your most reached region, gender, and age range of followers. In an article by Mitt Ray, he explains, “Taking steps to understand your audience using social data can help you in so many ways. For example, analyzing your past posts can help you find your unique best time to share.” Understanding the analytics of your audience will help you in creating content that best fits them. It is also beneficial to know who your posts have reached and if your posts are reaching your target audience.
Learn what posts reached high engagement
Social media platforms provide analytics for each social media post and help you review which ones received the most likes, comments, shares, impressions, and more. Using that tool is beneficial when reviewing your posts to see which ones received a lot of engagement. When understanding which posts reached your engagement goals can assist you in creating and planning your future posts to include similar captions and content.
Understanding past posts successes and failures to optimize future posts
Social media analytics lets you evaluate the past of your social media content and see what was successful and what failed to reach your social media goals. When understanding why a post failed because of posting time, or low image quality can help you change your plan for future posts. BusinessWire agrees, “Social media analytics tools help in enhancing the strategies and removing the steps that are not working.” You can discover what is a better posting time when comparing the posts that were successful and what time they were posted may play an effect in why it received high engagement.
Metrics to Use In:
Daily Report to Yourself
In a daily report to myself, I would include the number of likes, comments, views, and shares of posts from the day prior. The review of the metrics will help me in the review of what is working well for the page and what is not.
Weekly for Your Immediate Boss
In the report for your boss, you should lay out the analytic information to make it easy to read. Hootsuite recommends including goals, strategies, and success metrics in a social media report. In the report, you can list out what posts were published in the previous week and how they were steps in helping achieve your overall social media goals. You can share the strategies used in the posts and list out the success metrics.
Monthly for Your Company’s Management Team
Clearly have your goals for the social media campaign listed out in the monthly metric report to the company’s management team. They will need to see your goal was to increase engagement by 5% and you can show them with the metrics you have gathered that you reached that goal as your engagement on posts increased by 10%. In the report, it is important to list out your goals and provide the data in a clear and easy way to understand that you achieved or did not achieve your goals. Later also recommends, “Your social media marketing goals should always tie back to your short- and long-term business goals.” It is important to ensure your social media goals are tied back to your business goals. By showcasing the analytics that helps you prove you met your goals shows that the social media plan is help continue overall business goals.
Social media analytics are important to understand and review. They help you in understanding if you are reaching and achieving your social media campaign goals. Creating social media reports also helps you in proving the success or failures of your social media campaign.
