The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Metrics for Digital Marketing Success

As a business owner in the modern age, you know by now that digital marketing is an essential part of your overall business strategy. However, it can be challenging to know if your social media efforts are paying off. That's where social media metrics come in! Social media metrics provide valuable data on the effectiveness of your social media strategy, helping you to make data-driven decisions to improve your social media presence.

At FMO Media, we are a full-service digital marketing agency that understands the importance of social media metrics for your business. To make sure that you understand them too, we’ve put together this quick guide to the basics of social media metrics! In this post, we'll cover what social media metrics are, why they matter, and the most important metrics to track. We'll also provide tips for tracking and analyzing social media metrics and common mistakes to avoid. By the end of this post, you'll have a solid understanding of social media metrics and how to use them to heat up your social media strategy!

What are social media metrics?

Definition of social media metrics

Social media metrics are the statistics that represent any and all engagement with your social media content. These are typically measured weekly, monthly, quarterly, or from the beginning to the end of a planned social media marketing campaign.

Simply put: social media metrics are the backbone of your digital marketing strategy. They are the data points that give you a clear understanding of how well your content is performing and how your audience is engaging with it. Think of social media metrics as the compass that guides you towards digital marketing success!

Types of social media metrics

Social media metrics are the statistics that represent any and all engagement with your social media content. These are typically measured weekly, monthly, quarterly, or from the beginning to the end of a planned social media marketing campaign.

Definition of social media metrics

Views: The number of people who have viewed a given piece of digital marketing content. (TikTok, Reels, Instagram Stories, etc.)
Impressions/reach: This measures the number of accounts or viewers that have been reached by your content. This differs from your view count in that it measures everyone who has seen your content, including anyone who may have scrolled by it without stopping to fully engage. This measurement reflects the potential for growth in your social media accounts.
Views by source: Exclusive to YouTube, this metric tracks how exactly viewers may have found your content, whether it’s from the search bar, linked from your Instagram or website, via Google search, etc. This is a handy metric for measuring where you may need to improve promotion of your videos!.

Definition of social media metrics

Likes: This coveted currency represents the number of people who have gone out of their way to “favorite” your post, or acknowledge their enjoyment of your content.
Comments: This measures the number of responses to your post.
Shares/retweets: Named differently across each platform, this represents the number of times your content has been reposted by other social media users.
Shares/retweets: Named differently across each platform, this represents the number of times your content has been reposted by other social media users.
Profile visits: If you’ve ever wondered how many people have enjoyed your content so much (or at least thought about it so deeply) that it made them curious enough to visit your profile, check this metric!
Clicks/website clicks/click-through rate: Similar to the above, this measures the number of users who have clicked on your tracked link or visited your website from your social media profile.
User funnel: While this can be used to measure metrics from any social media website, it’s most commonly used by Facebook. This handy data visualization aggregates all of your engagement and sorts it from the most to least successful categories. It can be extremely helpful in improving your posting strategy. For example, if likes are at the top of your funnel, but comments are at the bottom, it may help you pivot your strategy to be more engaging/encourage more comments.

Why do social media metrics matter?

In short, measuring social media metrics is the secret to unlocking your social media marketing strategy's full potential. By tracking metrics, you can identify what type of content resonates the most with your audience, which social media channels are driving the most traffic to your website, and even what time of day your audience is most active. This information can help you refine your social media strategy and optimize your marketing efforts.

Tracking social media metrics can also help you spot potential issues or areas for improvement. For instance, if you notice a sudden drop in engagement on one of your platforms, you can investigate to see what might have caused the decrease and make changes to your strategy accordingly.

In conclusion, social media metrics provide critical insights into the effectiveness of your social media marketing strategy. By tracking and analyzing these metrics, you can make data-driven decisions that will help you improve your social media presence, reach your audience more effectively, and achieve digital marketing success!

How to interpret social media metrics

Tracking and analyzing social media metrics can be a game-changer for your digital marketing strategy, but it's important to do it effectively. Depending on your business goals and the ever-changing tide of social media, your strategy for breaking down metrics may change over time- and rapidly!

For example, while likes used to be the ultimate goal for posting on any social media platform, the rise of vertical video and visible view counts (thanks to TikTok) means that views are now just as popular, if not more.

Additionally, if your goals are oriented toward lead generation and/or conversions, you may be more interested in clicks than you are in video views or racking up comments! We've compiled some best practices to help you get the most out of your social media metrics:

Regularly monitor your social media metrics: Metrics aren’t something you just take a peek at from time to time; they should be monitored on a regular basis to determine the success or pitfalls of your approach to posting. Our rockstar account managers keep a close eye on clients’ metrics to ensure peak performance and make informed decisions in their digital marketing strategies.
Focus on the most important metrics: Don't get bogged down by too many metrics! Instead, focus on the specific metrics that are most important to your business goals. For example, if your goal is to increase website traffic, focus on metrics such as click-through rates and website referrals.
Accentuate the positive: If your account has had better performance in one area than another, shout it out! The goal of any social media campaign is growth, so any improvement from the previous reporting is a net positive, even if it’s not in the categories you anticipated.
Don’t be afraid of opportunities for improvement: In a perfect world, every report would reflect a billion percent growth in every category and every business would be fighting for the coveted spot of the most followed account on Instagram. But that’s just not realistic, and it’s okay! Sometimes you may not see as much growth in a given category, but that only gives you and FMO’s dynamite digital marketing account managers more opportunities to try new things in your posting strategy!
Compare your metrics over time and look for trends: To see how your social media strategy is performing, it's important to compare your metrics over time. This can help you identify trends and patterns in your data and make adjustments accordingly. If there are any significant changes in your metrics that indicate success or failure of your strategy, or areas where your accounts really shine, our digital marketing account managers will make note of any significant increases or decreases and identify what caused them.
Consider context: Finally, don’t forget context when looking through your social media reports. Sometimes, things beyond your control can have a significant impact on your digital strategy. For example, an outage on a social media platform or service may reflect lower engagement on that platform for that day, as people are not able to access the app and engage with your content. Keeping these contextual factors in mind will help you to further understand your social media data and what actions need to be taken in response.

Common social media metrics mistakes
to avoid

Tracking social media metrics can make your digital marketing strategy soar, but it's crucial to avoid the common mistakes that businesses often make! As a digital marketing agency, we've seen these pitfalls first-hand, and we're here to help you avoid them.

Here are some common social media metrics mistakes to steer clear of:

Focusing only on vanity metrics: It's easy to get caught up in the numbers, but it's crucial to focus on metrics that truly matter for your business goals. Don't be distracted by the number of followers or likes, as they do not always translate to conversions or revenue.
Not setting specific goals: Without specific goals in mind, it's challenging to measure success or progress. Be sure to set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-bound) goals to track your social media metrics accurately.
Ignoring context: It's essential to consider the context of your social media metrics, such as seasonality, current events, or changes in your marketing strategy. These factors can impact your metrics and should be taken into account when analyzing them.