Social media marketing is a very popular thing because it gets results. If it is done the right way, people will respond. Social media gives businesses the opportunity to engage with their audience. Questions can be answered, information can be given in real-time, and customers can feel a bit closer to the business. At the same time, new customers can be acquired.
But how do you know exactly how well your social media page is doing?
Well, there are a number of metrics to track. This is actually one of the trickiest parts of social media marketing. These are numbers to look at in order to compare the increase in business or number of customers that are the direct result of social media activities.
But why should you be concerned with metrics anyway?
Well, you do not necessarily have to be, especially when you have a firm managing your social media for you. However, you are naturally going to wonder how your social media pages are performing and how they are contributing to your business. This is important information so you know whether or not you are truly getting value for your money. If your pages are performing well, then you know that your page is reaching people and they are becoming aware of your business.
Here is an example of why this is important:
Coldplay released a new single on February 25th. Six hours after they released the video on Facebook, the video received 67,498 likes, it was shared 13,040 times, and it was commented on 4,164 times. The video was released on YouTube shortly before it was shared by the Coldplay page on Facebook. In just over 6 hours, it received 473,053 plays on YouTube.
Those that manage this Facebook page (you know Coldplay doesn’t measure metrics), will use information such as this to see how sharing on social media relates to the number of purchases, particularly on iTunes and similar digital stores.
If they didn’t think that social media would have an influence on the number of sales, they wouldn’t bother with having someone manage their social media. The fact is that it does make a difference.
As for the metrics that are measured, they are:
- Conversion rate – The number of conversations per post. In other words, this is the number of replies a post gets.
- Amplification rate – This is the number of times a post is re-shared or re-pinned, or re-tweeted.
- Applause rate – This is likes on Facebook, plusses on Google+, favorites on Twitter, and so on.
Also measured are engagement rates where the social networks can be compared to one another to see which one is engaging the audience the most. Even the types of posts that get the most engagement can be measured. This helps determine economic value, which is the short- and long-term value of social media marketing on the various networks. The consensus on this last element, however, is that there is a great deal of value and that is why so many businesses strive to engage an audience on these networks.
