Once you or your brand have developed a social media strategy centered around specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-based (SMART) goals, it is crucial to implement a way to track, analyze and adjust this carefully crafted strategy. Social media analytics refer to this exact process of tracking, collecting and analyzing data from any and all social networks a brand may be a part of (Hootsuite, 2021). These metrics track everything from likes, brand mentions, engagement, followers, demographic information, audience breakdown, and more. Without the use of social media analytics, brands risk wasting valuable time, resources, and energy on marketing and advertising tactics without any rhyme or reason and no way to calculate ROI. “Your social media goals are what determine your metrics. For every goal, you need a related metric, which will help determine if your social strategy is hitting the mark or not.” (Chen, 2021)

Daily, Weekly, and Monthly Metrics

Daily Report for Individual Use: Engagement, Impression, and Reach

When it comes to tracking daily social media metrics, focusing on engagement should be a key goal. Social engagement involves the number of likes, the number of comments, the number of shares, and the amount of clicks a piece of content receives. This content can be structured in the form of pictures, videos/reels, blogs, and more, and is created to influence your audience in many different ways. Tracking these metrics daily help guide, strengthen, and solidify social tactics and give the person managing a specific social media account a detailed picture of important data like what types of content is hitting the mark, what days and times work best for this type of content, which platforms best support this content, and how to lean into this type of content to strengthen engagement even further.

Impression and reach are metrics that help better analyze which content an audience is engaging with.

Impression and reach also play a part in uncovering what content is hitting or missing the mark. “Reach is the total number of people who see your content and impressions are the number of times your content is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not. (York, 2020) A brand’s reach stays consistent with the number of followers the brand has on any given social platform, but a brand’s overall number of impressions rises with each subsequent content post that is shared; more content = more impressions but same number of followers = same number of followers reached. Impression and reach are metrics that help better analyze which content an audience is engaging with.

A Weekly Report for Your Immediate Team

Share of Voice

Share of voice (SOV) helps determine brand visibility by pulling data form social media platforms when users mention your brand’s name. This information is compared to relevant industry data, like how often your industry competitors are being mentioned on those same platforms. “By knowing your SOV, your brand has a better understanding of the challenges and your current position in the market, giving you more insight into how to achieve growth and captivate users.” (Jackson, 2020)

Share this information weekly with whoever is overseeing your efforts to give them an idea of your digital reputation and how it is, hopefully, being enhanced through the use of your strategic social media strategy. This report should also detail how often your brand is engaging back with it’s audience, response times and solutions to questions, comments, and concerns, and reflect new strategies formed by implementing social listening tactics shaped by the audience’s evident wants, needs, and woes.

A Monthly Report for Management

“Your monthly report should be much more succinct. It’s about keeping track of your data, drawing insights from that data, and making sure your strategy is on the right track.” (Carbone, 2020) Focus on referrals, conversion rates, and how this data influences ROI. Referrals are how a user lands on your page or website and tracks which site, ad, or mention a user was referred from. This is important data because it lets everyone know which platforms are reaching the right audience at the right times and where to focus marketing energy.

A conversion takes place when someone purchases something from your brand’s website and a social conversion adds an additional channel into this metric by including the social platform the consumer visited which led them to purchasing something from your brand during that same visit.” (Chen, 2021) Conversions mean marketing strategies are working and enlighten the management team on digital selling profits.

Industry and Goals Determine Metrics

Each specific industry and the goals those industries hope to achieve through the use of a social media strategy can vary greatly which is why understanding which metrics matter most is so incredibly important. Measuring social media success and adjusting accordingly can only be done by analyzing the unique data created by your brand’s social content through engagement by your brand’s audience. Better understand your audience, refine your goals, and treat your social media data like the gold that it truly is if you want to be a successful social media marketer.