How to measure social media success can be quite challenging.
You keep posting different things on social media but you’re not entirely sure if it’s working or not. Some say the more likes you have the better while other’s check engagement and other’s are not even sure if their social media is actually working. Social media marketing is not easy and what people fail to understand is that at the end of the day you need to measure your success in everything you post otherwise the work you post is rather pointless. Here are a few ways to measure that success.
1. Audience growth and volume
You can be on social media and no one is talking about you which is rather pointless. To understand the impact you are making on social media you need to track and see how many people are talking about your brand. How large is the conversation around your brand? Are people talking about your industry/offering? These are questions volume can help answer. Apart from checking on the number of posts that are making rounds you need to be able to see how many people are talking about you which can be quite challenging but not impossible. You can track this by seeing how many people reshare your content or keep mentioning you.
2. Check the reach
There are different types of reach. There’s organic reach, viral reach and paid reach. All three are very different and require different tactics and they are all very important. Reach, therefore, is a great indicator of your potential audience size. It measures how far your content and message spreads across social media. On Instagram and Facebook it tells you how many people have seen your content and is calculated when your content appears on somebody’s news feed. To avoid wasting money it’s always wise to test your content organically before promoting it further. The only way to reach the relevant audiences is by targeting the right group of people who are in the same demographic.
3. Check engagement
On most social media platforms engagement is measured by the number of comments, likes, and shares. The more engagement your content gets the higher the reach and then it’s highly likely you’re going to create a community. High engagement means your audience knows and trusts you. It’s an indicator that you’ve created a community around your brand. The more people engage with your content the more likely it’s going to do well. Make sure people like, comment, share and mention your brand or content as much as possible because that’s the only way it’s going to grow.
4. How much influence do you have
How much influence do you have with your audience really matters. Do they look at you as a person of authority? Having influence builds trust and this means starting this conversation yourself. You need to get into the “dirt” and engage with your followers. Reply to their messages and tweets, offer a helping hand and generally talk to them like a human being.
