How to see if your social media is working
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus and Pinterest are just some of the great tools available to run social media campaigns, to boost interest in your business and products. There are ways of monitoring your posts to see if you are reaching the required audience. Here we’ll look a some of the metrics you can use to analyse your social media performance.
Before you start
Getting your social media analysis organised helps you to stay focused on your growing audience. You can do this by creating a spreadsheet to store all the data you’re going to track:
In the first column of the spreadsheet, list all the social media outlets you’re active on
In the second column, add the number of likes and follows you have received
The third column should show the percentage change in followers and likes from the previous period
Add a fourth column to show the amount of engagement your posts have created
In the final column place the percentage change in engagement from the previous period
Remember: Engagement with your social media posts is crucial, it shows the content you have posted has resonated with your followers.
How to measure social media growth
The number of social media followers you have is important, as more followers translate into a bigger audience for your posts, more engagement and increased traffic. Social networks will clearly show the number of followers you have, although it may be difficult to judge which posts have generated spikes in follower growth.
Your chosen social network will have an analytical tool that will graph the number of followers you get each day, showing any spikes and allowing you to discover which posts lead to those spikes.
Top Tip: Great content will boost followers. Recreate posts that lead to follower spikes and consider why other posts have caused quieter periods.
How to measure reach
Impressions metrics show you how many people have viewed your posts. Nearly all social networks will have this tool. On Twitter, for example, visit analytics.twitter.com/, then click on the tweets tab to see the number of impressions.
Remember: Other social networks will have this metric, but under different names. For example, Facebook’s metric is called “people reached”.
How to measure engagement
Engagement is probably the most important factor to consider when judging the success of a post. Followers and impressions are fine, but if your posts aren’t leading to likes, shares, retweets and reposts, then the content isn’t striking a chord with your audience. Once again, look at the stats to judge which posts have generated the most engagement and which posts have been ignored by your followers.
How to measure clicks and referrals
Engagement on your social media sites can lead to clicks on your business website. Customers may be drawn to your products and services through the content you’ve shared. To work out which social media sites have generated the most traffic to your business site you should:
* Use Google Analytics
* Check your website’s dashboard
* Click Acquisition > Social > Network Referrals
* Note which social network generates the most traffic to your site