Learning how to measure social media success all begins with your core goals and what your business wants to achieve. Nobody but you can determine your own success without some sort of end goal in mind. These goals could revolve around increased engagement, new followers or increased referral traffic.
There are various social media analytics you can use to measure whether or not your efforts are paying off, this data gives you an insight into what people are responding to and engaging with on your social channels and you can then use this data to measure the growth and effectiveness of your social channels.
Each social platform has its' own analytics or insights tool:
Twitter uses Twitter Analytics
Facebook uses the Insights tab
Instagram uses the Insights tab
You can monitor many different aspects of your social media channels, but here are 6 we suggest you start with for marketing success!
Monitor follower growth
Your total amount of followers represents the amount of people who have taken an interest in your business or content. Ideally, you should consistently grow your following. This means the content you’re sharing and the ways you’re engaging your audience need to be enticing enough to attract new followers.
Monitor likes, comments, share and reactions
Analysing how your audience reacts to the content you post and share is crucial, this will help determine whether your audience is interested in your current content and help you access what content to create in the future for maximum engagement.
Monitor engagement
Knowing when your audience is most likely to engage with your content is important as it means you can post your content when your audience is the most active to increase your reach.
Determine your reach
Your reach combines the number of people you’ve reached both within and outside of your audience. When people engage with your content, their activity is usually shared with their connections, which increases your page’s reach.
Examine click rates
Click rates help you understand how your followers engage with you, why they’re engaging, and what’s making them click on different links.
Track Referral Traffic from Social Media
For your business you will want to track your referral traffic from social media to see where people are before visiting your business’s website. Unlike the other metrics listed above, you’ll find your referral traffic data in your Google Analytics.
Social media isn’t easy and can be a big trial and error exercise but using these monitoring tools can help make sure you are on the right tracks.
If you are thinking about starting or growing a business and looking for advice, contact the Enterprise Hub team to find out more about our funded support on 0151 706 8113 or enterprisehub@thewo.org.uk
