The Right Metric
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Data analysis is complex. There are often so many different aspects to track that it can quickly get overwhelming, especially for someone with little experience or trying to break into the space.
Social media analytics is no different, with platforms and measurement tools giving dozens of options for managers to look through. But for those just trying to get the essentials, what should you be looking for?
I’ll review some of the most common questions and metrics to look out for and make your next analytics project more manageable.
Who is my audience?
Understanding exactly who your target audience is is essential, as the more you know about your audience, the better you are able to target what their likes are.
Using metrics like engagement to determine what your audience is interacting with most, growth and reach to find your audience size, and sentiment to understand how they feel are significant first steps to knowing exactly how to interact with your customers.
The more you grow as a brand, the more you’ll be able to utilize these metrics to know precisely which audiences will click for one type of ad and be able to use specific platforms to connect with those people.
Am I doing better than my competitors?
Knowing your performance over main competitors can be necessary to see if you're improving and gaining market share.
In social media, we often look at our audience's engagement, growth, and share of voice. Engagement is a core component to understanding what your audience is connecting with, looking at what people are saying, what they like, and where their attention is going.
The more engagement our posts receive over our competitors can show if we are outperforming their campaigns, and when combined with our reach, we can understand how many people are seeing it and possibly promoting it to their friends, increasing our net performer score.
Growth can also be a defining factor as growth can show how many people are liking and following your brand. This can then be compared with competitors to see if your brand is growing at a rate faster than their social media accounts.
These two can also help determine our share of voice (SOV) and see exactly what percentage of our audience is discussing our brand in comparison to our competitors. This can help us see exactly where we should be targeting our efforts, and give us insight into what audiences like or have issues with on our or competitor products.
What are people saying about my brand?
Discussions around our brand are always great, but it’s essential to be able to address hostile audiences and see how we can improve or change to suit these needs better.
For that, we need to examine our audiences’ sentiments. Audience sentiment can help us determine precisely what is or isn’t working by examining what people are saying about the brand.
This can be done in many ways, primarily through comment section discussions and social listening. By analyzing what people say, we can get an idea of their feelings and where problems lie.
When is the best time to publish?
Knowing just when to publish can be challenging to determine. For some, just posting during the middle of the day can work fine, but often, doing tests with reach can be the best way to find when your audience is online.
Staggering posts throughout the day or posting at different times each day can help see when your reach is the highest.
For some mattress brands, posting at night when potential customers are trying to sleep on their uncomfortable bed can work great, but if you're Chipotle, posting closer to lunch or dinner would work better so customers will see it when they are hungry.
Which content does my audience enjoy the most?
While there isn’t one defined metric to understand the best types of content for your specific brand, often using impressions is a great way to get a baseline understanding.
Through impressions, we are able to go beyond what a metric like reach would provide by seeing how many times a user is looking at a piece of content. This way, we can understand if a post is sticking with people, whether a video, photo, or just some text.
For brands trying to send people somewhere, like a website, we can also look at the conversion rate to see if people are following through with the action you want them to take. This can help influence what posts will get people to your desired action.
Which social media network is the best for my brand?
Determining the platforms and sites that work for you depends on the content you want to post.
Brands that expect to do more text-based promotions should look towards Twitter (now X) for their ads, while a platform like Instagram or TikTok might be better for photo or video-based content.
Similarly, a site like Pinterest can also have benefits for photo-based promos, while LinkedIn might work best for companies connecting with professionals.
How can I have a better performance on social media?
The best way to improve social media performance is to utilize all these metrics to their fullest potential. By choosing the right content for each platform, you can see every post's reach, impressions, and engagement and determine what kinds of content click with audiences and how they respond.
By also looking at sentiment, social media managers can find potential and current customers' issues with the brand and products so that they can be addressed to better fit with what they like or associate with.
With continued observation and improvements, brands should see an increase in follower growth across platforms to overtake and surpass any potential competitors.
Hopefully, through this guide, you could learn more about the many metrics involved with social media analytics and how these can help you better grasp your online accounts.