As a business owner, you know that social media is a powerful tool to reach new customers and grow your brand. But how do you measure your social media engagement? By following these great tips on how to measure social media engagement, you can get a better understanding of what’s working on your social channels and what isn’t.
So if you’re ready to learn more about how to measure social media engagement, read on!
How to Measure Social Media Engagement
There are a few different ways that you can measure social media engagement. One way is to look at the number of likes, comments, and shares that a post gets.
Another way is to look at the click-through rate (CTR) on a link that you share on social media.
What Does Social Media Engagement Mean?
While everyone understands the importance of engaging with customers on social media, they have a hard time defining it.
No one has pinpointed what it means, and there is a reason!
Engagement on social media platforms is tricky, as it involves both customers and companies.
So what is social media engagement?
From a customer’s perspective, it is being able to contact a business and getting a response from them.
If I have any issues with my order on eBay, I go to Twitter and ask (@AskeBay) for a response.
That just about covers the basics of social media.
The actions that trigger a social media notification will vary from platform to platform and from user to user. Ultimately, it’s when someone interacts with your social content that a notification will be sent.
Importance Of Social Media Engagement
Let’s quickly go over why it’s important to engage with your prospects.
Boost Customer Relationships
Today, communication between customers and businesses is two-way, allowing customers to actively engage with companies.
Whenever you receive a message from a customer on social media, you’re given the opportunity to build a relationship with them.
Responding quickly to their queries, acknowledging their feedback properly, and offering excellent customer service on social media can help you improve your customer relationships.
Develop Customer Loyalty
It’s important to offer a quick and helpful customer experience, as this will go a long way in increasing customer loyalty. Customers often reach out when they need assistance, so by being available and providing them with the help they need, you’ll foster trust and confidence in your brand.
It builds customer loyalty because you were there for them when they needed it most.
Solving customer issues promptly, expressing gratitude, and engaging in lighthearted conversations will help you develop strong customer loyalty for your brand.
Boost Sales
If you’re out there answering customers’ questions, it will make them feel more at ease and confident in you.
They’ll now be more willing to make purchases through your site.
Even if you’re getting negative or hateful comments, addressing them quickly and resolving them can still lead to an increase in sales.
If you want to increase your sales, don’t be a salesman in your comment section. Instead, try connecting with your customers genuinely. Sales will come naturally this way.
How to Measure Social Media Engagement
Social media is so popular because it provides a simple, straightforward way to connect with customers. Most platforms have dashboards that provide all the most important information at a glance.
All you need to know is how to read the call data.
1. Likes and Shares
The easiest metrics to measure are the number of likes and shares of your social media posts.
Most social media sites have replicated the “like” button and give users the ability to share their content with other users.
Both of these methods allow you to see how well your posts are doing and to potentially widen your outreach by reaching people outside your immediate network.
2. Audience Growth/Rate of Followers
Keep an eye on the rate at which you’re gaining new followers.
If you notice that the rate of new followers is slow and unreliable, you may want to consider increasing your posting frequency. This could help to give your audience more content to engage with, and potentially attract new followers.
If you’re losing followers, it might be time to take a look at your recent posts and see if your strategy needs an adjustment.
3. Followers vs Following Ratio
In social media, it is highly recommended that you follow the accounts of others that are in the same field as you.
But watch your follower-to-following ratio.
If you have 88 followers but are following 300 people, it might appear that you are desperate for engagement and could deter users from interacting with you. Try to keep the numbers within the same ballpark.
4. Active Fans
While it’s nice to see an increase in your number of followers, not all of them are of equal value.
Keep track of the number of fans who interact with your business — whether they comment on your Facebook posts, review your Facebook page, retweet your tweets, or otherwise talk to or about your business.
Active fans are significantly more important to your business than passive ones. Make sure to interact with them often, and your number of active users will rise.
5. Paid Social vs Organic Traffic
Getting organic traffic to your website means getting visitors through your content and your social communities.
Social media advertising, or paid social media, refers to ads or promoted posts that businesses use to reach their target audience.
When running a pay-per-click campaign, it’s important to keep track of the return on investment (ROI) to see whether you should re-invest in new keywords. By tracking your ROI, you can determine whether your current PPC strategy is effective and make necessary changes to improve your campaigns.
6. Clicks Per Post
When posting links to your blog or other websites, it’s important to track how many times users click on those links.
This is a great way to see how much traffic your social media efforts are bringing in. If you feel like you need to post more, then this is a great way to help determine that.
It also allows you to see if your content is aligned with your brand message and target audience. This is helpful in order to make sure you are on track with what you are trying to achieve.
7. Lead Generation
Although social media is centered around sharing and engaging with posts, the ultimate goal is for your followers to actually interact with your brand.
If you want to generate leads from your social media accounts, you should be tracking the number of people that visit your site from each account. This will help you determine which social media platforms are generating the most leads so you can focus your efforts on those channels.
8. Audience Demographics
With 1,000 Twitter followers, you can gather data about their ages, genders, locations, and their interests.
This information is crucial because it can help you paint a picture of your target market, understand what they are interested in, and – most importantly – what they want (which you’ll give them).
9. Audience Mentions
Social media users can mention your business on other websites, whether it’s a blog or their own personal social media accounts.
It’s never fun when your reputation gets tarnished in the eyes of potential customers. If you’re not monitoring what’s being said about your business online, you could miss a critical complaint that could damage your relationship with a customer. It’s important to respond to comments, questions, or criticisms in a timely manner to maintain the image of a company that cares about its customers’ feedback.
10. Count the Money
In some businesses, it can be very difficult to track which sales are directly attributed to social media marketing. However, you can define your lead sources however you want.
Maybe someone asks about what services you provide after you supply helpful answers on LinkedIn or Twitter, or a fan expresses loyalty to your brand and says they plan to buy another as a gift. Both are sales-ready leads, so count them up.
7 Tools to Track Social Media Engagement
Knowing how to read your social media data is a big first step toward measuring your engagement and ultimately knowing your ROI.
But monitoring your social media activity effectively is another beast entirely. The right tools can literally save you hundreds of hours each year.
Here are 7 great tools for this purpose.
1. Oktopost
Pricing: Free 14-day trial available paid plans start at $2,400/year.
If you are a business-to-business company that is having a hard time finding a platform that caters to the needs of businesses, this platform can help.
The best part of Oktopost is that it can be synced with any automation platform you might already be using. This makes for a streamlined and cohesive user experience.
2. Buffer
Pricing: Free plan available. Paid plan of $10/month.
At its core, Buffer is a scheduling tool that allows businesses to schedule their social media posts in advance so that Buffer can automatically send out the content according to the dates and times that you decided on.
This saves your business time and also helps you reach your audience at the optimal times.
But Buffer also offers multiple features in analytics and reporting, including tracking influencers, interactions on your posts, and engagement metrics like comments, clicks, likes, and shares.
3. HootSuite
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $34.99 per month.
With over 15 million users depending on its integrated web and mobile dashboard, HootSuite is the world’s most widely used social media platform.
Its primary mission is to help people and businesses spread messages by bringing multiple social networks together in one place.
This tool makes posting and commenting effortless. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram—you can monitor all these accounts on the same dashboard and see what’s happening in real-time.
If you have a vibrant marketing team, HootSuite also lets administrators delegate messages and tasks so that no one is confused about their role.
4. Agorapulse
Price: Subscription-based paid plans start at $49 per month. Offers free tools.
Agorapulse has multiple benefits for any business looking to consolidate their social media. Like HootSuite, this tool helps you better manage multiple social media accounts and lets you schedule content beforehand.
Users can receive real-time notifications, identify the users that have interacted with them the most, and compare their social media pages with competitors.
5. Google Analytics
Price: Free plan available. Paid plans start at $150,000 per year.
You may already be using Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic and determine which pages are doing better than others. But did you know that Google Analytics can also be used to track social media progress?
You can set up Google Analytics to show you which social media platforms your visitors are coming from, which social share buttons are being clicked the most on your site, and what websites are linking back to your content.
6. Keyhole
Price: Free 3-day plan. Paid plans start at $99 per month.
Keyhole fulfills a very specific need in social media analytics: the tracking of hashtags, URLs, and keywords.
Tracking hashtags might not seem like a big deal, but by paying attention to trending hashtags and popular keywords related to your business, your social media content will reach a wider audience – and your customers will love seeing current buzzwords appear in your posts.
Keyhole can give you valuable insights into impressions, geo-location, and the top influencers that are using the same hashtags as you. Keyhole will also update you in real-time, so you can curate the best content to extend your brand’s reach.
7. Kissmetrics
Price: Free 14-day trial. Paid plans start at $200 per month.
Kissmetrics is one of the many projects started by Neil Patel. This analytics platform collects and displays data for each customer you acquire through your website, your apps, or your mobile products.
It’s a very refined tool used to measure revenue as well as complex customer behaviors.
Conclusion
By following the tips above, you can get a better understanding of your social media engagement and what’s working on your channels. So if you’re ready to learn more about how to measure social media engagement, put these tips into practice and see the results for yourself!
