Key KPIs in SMM that are worth tracking
Key Performance Indicators (KPI) are numerical performance indicators, a tool that allows you to evaluate and monitor work.
Like any other marketing channel, SMM requires an assessment of the effectiveness of actions. For this, KPIs are used, which allow you to get a complete picture of the project. Tracking indicators will allow not only to determine the effectiveness of the team in certain areas, but also to demonstrate the results to the customer.
Analytics offers such a large number of metrics that it is sometimes difficult even for a specialist to choose the most necessary ones. Therefore, it is worth selecting the most important of them, focusing on the features of the project and its promotion. Below are the metrics that seasoned SMMs recommend.
1. The number of subscribers
One of the most common metrics in the field of SMM. This is a basic metric, as the top priority of a manager is to grow the community. It depends on such factors as the quality of the offered content, geolocation, clear segmentation of the target audience, a well-formulated USP, etc.
The number of subscribers can be easily wound up, but the negative consequences of this will not be long in coming. If you have any such suspicions, it is worth examining the subscriber profiles. Information about them can be compared with information about your target audience and calculated bots.
Various social networks provide the ability to track the path of subscribers. For example, on Facebook, you can count users who came organically without ads, but through search, guest posts, recommendations, etc. If the audience is large, then this indicates that you are offering useful content, and subscribers are showing interest in the brand.
2. Audience reach
This metric shows the number of users included in your real social audience, and the number of users that your posts can reach. The audience reach includes the following indicators:
- audience growth – the number of subscribers and unsubscribed users over a certain period of time (we divide the number of new subscribers by the total amount);
- position of issue (space occupied by an ad when requested);
- brand or company name mentions within the reporting time;
- number of subscribers ;
- post reach (the number of users to whom the page was shown);
- possible impressions (the number of users, which the post might have been shown to);
- audience percentage (see brand posts versus competitor posts);
- audience location (the ratio of positive and negative reviews to the total number of mentions);
- video views , if any.
Simply put , this metric shows how many people at least once contacted the posts on the page. This can be general coverage or coverage for specific posts. And it is worth considering that social networks always take into account only unique users.
The coverage is also characterized depending on traffic channels – organic (depends on the number of subscribers and the frequency of publications), paid (obtained through advertising) and viral (users who are not subscribed to the page, but saw the content thanks to reposts).
3. Clicks or transitions to the site
If you have a website, it is important to track the number of clicks to it from social networks. This can be done in web analytics systems. The process will be easier if the links have UTP tags. This will help you understand the effectiveness of each post.
Experts do not recommend setting strict requirements for traffic in the first months of work. It will take time to establish a trusting relationship with the audience – there will not be so many people willing to click on unfamiliar links.
Over time, the larger the audience becomes, the more people should go to the site. It is important to understand why the number of clicks is increasing – because of the growth of the audience or the manifestation of interest in goods and services and the willingness to place an order. These metrics can also be tracked.
4. Conversions
A user completing a call-to-action can be considered a conversion. The conversion rate is calculated based on the number of users out of the total who took the targeted action. To optimize this indicator, you will need to collect the following data:
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- average bill;
- customer profit;
- the number of targeted actions during the reporting period;
- conversion rate (percentage of the total traffic that made the targeted action);
- cost of conversion (budget for one targeted action);
- conversion of new and secondary visitors;
- Revenue per click (the amount of profit earned on paid advertising);
- ROI (revenue generated from promotion on social media divided by the total cost).
An experienced SMM manager will bring an already prepared audience to the site. With the help of analytics services, it will be possible to track how much time the visitor spent on the site, what he saw and what he did not find.
5. Number of leads / sales
Using this metric, you can track how many contacts of potential customers were brought by social networks. These can be requests, orders, calls, etc.
Depending on the type of business, leads also include adding an item to the cart, placing an order, or services. Leads have their own value, which can be reduced by working on promoting conversion requests.
6. User engagement
By analyzing this indicator, they find out how actively people react to the company’s activities in social networks. To do this, there are the following indicators:
- growth level (the number of page reposts during the reporting period);
- approval ( number of likes, comments, adding to favorites);
- percentage of interactions (part of the total number of users who showed a desire to interact);
- comments;
- subscriber engagement;
- virality of the post.
One way to increase user engagement is by offering them useful, quality content.
7. ROI for a given channel
ROI (Return On Investment) is a metric that characterizes the return on investment, that is, the income related to a specific investment. This metric allows you to determine how profitable it is for a business to work in one direction or another. The data obtained will help to adjust the strategy in order to avoid wasting the budget.
Conclusion
These are the basic and more or less universal metrics that will help determine the effectiveness of business promotion in social networks. Each campaign can have its own – it all depends on the timing, goals and characteristics of the products being promoted. It’s important to just understand that these metrics are important, they work and can be useful for everyone – both customers and performers.