Putting together campaign assets and a strategy is only part of the legwork that goes into running a successful social media campaign. Once it’s all said and done, it’s time to analyze your efforts. What worked? What didn’t? Knowing the answers to these questions is crucial for making decisions about future campaigns. Here are 10 social media campaign metrics you should use to evaluate the effectiveness of your campaign.
After the launch of your social media campaign, identifying and analyzing the metrics of your content is key. The outcome of these metrics allows you to demonstrate the value and impact your work has made, all while ensuring the payoff of your social media investment to your team.
Just as the campaign strategy you planned should have been based on your brand’s goals, the metrics you analyze should be tied to your goals as well. Otherwise, you’ll be left in the dark on how to improve future social media marketing efforts.
The number of people and how often they interacted with your content are the ideal metrics to focus on when your goals are geared toward improving your brand’s online presence. They help boost your brand’s visibility on Instagram as they directly impact how the algorithm favors you. If the goals for your campaign included brand awareness, growing your following or generating engagement, you’ll want to pay extra attention to these metrics:
Likes: Likes are more than just superficial red hearts. These approval actions, with total number of followers taken into account, will determine your applause rate. By acknowledging value in your content, your target market is telling you what to focus on going forward. For example, maybe they prefer video content over photo posts. Taking note of these details will give you insight on what kinds of content to create to drive future campaigns.
Shares: Shares are especially important because it’s a step your followers will only take unless they really enjoyed your content and thought it was worth showing their own followers. Increased shares and virality rates tell you how well the post is resonating with your followers. These posts also expand your brand’s reach because with every share, you’re being shown to a new audience who might not be familiar with your brand.
Comments: Understanding your comment volume will help you increase engagement. The amount of comments you get are a good indication about whether or not your content is engaging and if your captions are fostering conversations with your followers. Studying the feedback of posts through the comments section can also serve as a review forum for the subject of the campaign.
(Active) Followers: Focusing on how many followers you gained in a certain bracket of time is far more telling then how many followers you have in general. If you see a significant boost in your followers during the campaign, it’s a clear indication that the campaign was interesting and engaging enough for people to want to learn more about your brand. If you’re working with influencers, growth in your follower count indicates that the influencers you partnered with were the right fit.
Brand Mentions: Whether you were directly or indirectly tagged or mentioned, the amount of mentions for your product or brand helps with gauging how relevant you are in the market. Just like shares, mentions are valuable because they show people who have liked your brand enough to post about you and tag you so their followers will view your account.
How far your content is reaching and how big your audience is are prime subject matters when the goal in your campaign is to spread a specific message. Spreading a message is often the driving force for bringing in new customers. If your goals included launching a new product, increasing reach and generating sales, these metrics are key:
Reach: This is a measure of audience size. This would be an important metric to look at if your priority is to get the message across to as many people as possible. If you’re promoting a new product, you’ll want to know how many people your campaign messages reached to see if enough people have been informed about your latest release.
Impressions: Track impressions to determine how many times a person came into contact with the content in your campaign. This can be seen in how many times they saw your ads and posts, which are documented in Facebook’s Ads Manager and Instagram Insights. The saying “out of sight out of mind” applies here. If people aren’t consistently seeing your brand’s content, then you risk them taking their business elsewhere.
Click Throughs: The amount of click throughs you receive represents how often people are clicking on your calls-to-action. Now you can grasp if your offer is compelling. Did people click your ads to learn more? Did people “swipe up” on your Instagram Stories to make a purchase? Monitor how many people are clicking through to your links to see if your campaign strategy and assets were motivating enough for the customer to take action.
Conversions/ Lead Generations: If your campaign is focused on getting customers to make a purchase, this metric is the most important. Look back at your strategy and see if you managed to reach your designated sales goals. You can learn how many people saw your campaign assets, clicked through to your website and completed an order. If you didn’t reach those sales goals, it’s time to regroup and see which piece of the process is lacking.
Influencer Metrics: If influencers took part in sharing your content or creating their own on your behalf, always be sure to check their metrics as well. This could include how many people used their affiliate code or link during the campaign. As well as the engagement, reaction and activeness of their followers. Constantly checking on the metrics of your influencers during and after their involvement in a campaign helps you figure out how well they fit with your brand and may increase or decrease future partnerships.