If you’re new to publishing, social media might look like an ordeal, one you have to pass through but also master. Social media is constantly evolving to fit the needs of netizens across the world. Some trends world globally and some don’t. As a content creator its important to leverage the promotional tool that it is while also ensuring that you’re strategizing your efforts.
Understanding social media metrics is important for all content creators. Metrics refer to the data you can collect that will show some light on your social media presence. The number of metrics you track depends on your budget, size of team and your goal. We’ve created a list of metrics you can look into to gauge your social media and content strategy.
Volume
Social media is a place for huge crowds, you need to know how many people are talking about your brand/company. This is a great indicator for interest. If there’s conversation around your service/content then that means that people are interested in what you have to say on the channel. It’s important to look into things like - “number of messages about your brand”, “people talking about your this”, unique people that posted about you and more. You can also look into the likes, reach and shares. What’s also important is when are they talking about you - is it after you put out press releases? A particular type of content? Maybe even after your social posts, this shows what can keep your audience engaged.
Reach
Reach helps you understand the context for your content. How much is the content spreading around and how big is your audience pool? This is also a measure of potential subscriber size. Reach cannot be a major factor in content strategies but it shows you potential and that can help you approach your audience better. Use your reach data to analyze how many of them are responsive, curious and workable. Look into elements like retweets, likes, replies etc.
Engagement
As the name suggests, this is the most important metric. It's social media, people are here to talk and interact. Look into how many people are actively participating with your content. What are they doing to share your content - are there shares? Do they enjoy a particular form of content? What kind of content is getting more engagement? Is one channel doing better than the other, etc.
Look into who’s actively spreading content and who’s responding to it - this could also include impressions. This data could help you focus on what’s important for your brand at the moment.
Influence
In an age where everyone is an influencer, you want to look at who’s saying what and if it’s working. Audience size is irrelevant when it comes to influence, not everybody can effectively influence their followers so you need to look out for those who have been able to influence a steady flow of readers onto your platform. A tool like Klout could help you out. You can also look into who are your brand’s most vocal advocates and who’s messages are amplified by others - this leads to a snowball effect that can help you garner a crowd who’s most likely to convert.
Share of voice
This measures how many people are talking about you in comparison to a competitor. How much about the conversation around the industry is about you? This is, obvious as the day, a competitive analysis and one that can tell you where you stand in industry. You can learn from your competitors and adapt some of their approaches. You can also see who you’re doing better than and avoid some of their mistakes. You add up every mention of your brand and compare this data with the others in the industry. The score is usually measured in percentage and can give you clarity on what type of content strategies are most effective with the audiences today.
Here are some other general metrics that could add value to your social media strategy and overall content strategy :
Time on site
This metric measures how much time a reader spends on your site - from the moment they land on the site to the moment they exit, also known as the session time. For news websites, this is an indicator of how long you were able to hold the interest of your audience. It sheds light on what kind of content your readers prefer, if a particular format has worked over others, etc.
Bounce rates
This is the percentage of readers that only visit one page before exiting from your site. This sheds light on your website’s user interface and performance. You can evaluate the website speed and overall performance in accordance with this data. You can also test how to get user retention by trial and error approach. Any lag in loading time will affect your website performance, pay attention to the user experience. You must also ensure that the readers find what they’re looking for immediately on clicking the site.
Core web vitals
We have a detailed blog on this subject. To put it simply, core web vitals checks on three parameters that ensure that your website performs well. This includes load time - if you have heavier elements on your site, it’s likely to slow you down. Have a look into this.
Conversion rate
Conversion rate looks into how often your social content starts a process like download, sale or subscription. This is very important in social media marketing metric as it shows the value associated with your social content - it means your posts are turning views into revenue.
Does this seem difficult for you with your current CMS? We have designed the Bold CMS by keeping social media needs of publishers in mind. Schedule your free demo so you can get started on your social media strategy today on a platform that is built to help you manage social posting easily.