Social Media is undeniably a valuable tool when it comes to building a personal relationship with your audience, as it helps you connect and collect insightful, helpful feedback and what is even more important, it can also be a very helpful factor in increasing revenue, reach, and overall ROI.

When it comes to social media, everybody talks about how important it is for one’s business but having a social media presence without an inch of strategy running in the background can turn out to be even more dangerous for your business than having no social presence at all. So, thread carefully on this path and keep one word in mind: strategy.

And how do you make sure your strategy is really helping you? The answer is quite simple: tracking the right KPIs. And the KPIs you choose have to be connected to your objectives – you might want to generate new leads, you might want to expand your brand or simply make your customers talk about you – good old engagement that has proven to be quite a magical aid, even when it comes to driving sales.

But first, let’s just start by answering one simple question:

What is a KPI?

A KPI translates as a Key Performance Indicator. And it refers to the quantifiable values that assist companies in gauging its performance over time. These are a measure of company’s progress with regards to strategic and operational goals, and other operations. Since the KPIs are accepted by businesses throughout the industries, it also enables companies to compare their finances and performances against that of their competitors.

Which KPIs should I track?

In order to get a full answer to this question, you must deep-dive into your business and ask yourself if what you have been pouring into your social media actually helps you get a positive answer to the following questions:

1. Are you reaching your audience?

2. Is your audience engaged?

3. Is your audience spreading the word about your products or inquiring about your products?

4. Did you manage to integrate sales within your social media strategy?

5. Do you manage negative feedback?

Once you’ve answered these questions, it’s show time and we can compile the key areas that need your constant attention when it comes to the social media sorcery.

REACH

Reach indicates how far has your message got in terms of your audience. It basically shows you how many people have seen your message. And unfortunately, measuring reach can be a bit misleading because it has to do with potentiality. It shows you the number of how many people might have seen your message, but here comes the tricky part, because simply scrolling through content while on Facebook, let’s say, one might get across your post, but this does not necessarily mean they have noticed it and this why the key word here is potentiality.

The metrics that should be tracked when aiming to track reach are the following:

1. Impressions:

Impressions indicate how many times your post showed up in someone's newsfeed or timeline, either because they are already following you and so, have access to your posts or because someone among their friends has liked or shared or interacted actively, as in, commented or reacted to your content. Of course, this doesn't translate into the fact that for every impression someone looked at your post or even noticed it -- this just means that they had a chance to. A bit of vagueness, one might say, but a higher number is always better. So, once again, potentiality.

2. Followers or fans:

Followers of fans represent the total number of people following your brand on social media. This is the total amount of people that could see your post and subsequently, interact with it and have actively declared they want to by hitting the like/subscribe button.

3.  Traffic Data

This comes as the most important KPI as it can help you identify what percentage of the traffic to your website comes from social media. So, your time and resources should be invested into growing this number as it is a sheer reflection of how successful your posts are when it comes to making people reach your website.

A monitoring tool is once again something that could help you track this data. And Sether will do the trick when it comes to monitoring.

ENGAGEMENT

Remember the times when brand communication was a one-way street with brands sending their message across TV, on the streets, at the radio only? Well, welcome to the two-way street communication, where customers can get closer to brands by means of online interactions. What happened is that social media has fundamentally changed the way that communication happens between businesses and their customers, essentially by creating a dynamic medium for communication between the business and all of its customers. And it all happens within seconds. The gap is no longer a gap. Communication between businesses and their customers is now a two-way street, as we were saying, enabling customers to engage with their favorite brands in completely new ways and it is definitely easier now to reach your customers.

Now that your audience is one click or a few taps away from you social media engagement is crucial to any business. Basically, social media engagement is a measurement of the efficiency of one’s company online interactions with its customers within the digital city. It can, of course, be measured in many ways – likes, mentions, shares, comments etc.

Simply put, engagement measures the number of likes, shares, and comments that your social updates receive.

Engagement is also a key sign in helping you determine if your marketing message resonates with your audience. Usually, this is depictable in having a large reach with low engagement. And if that happens, it’s a clear sign your audience does not resonate with your content. A good way of keeping things in sight is making use of a monitoring tool. And there are many options there are now present on the market and Sether is one that could totally give you a hand with monitoring your engagement.

The actual KPIs that you can measure might vary by social media platform, but typically include the following:

Clicks – This is the first sign you get that an individual is interested in your posts. Keep track of what kind of posts gets you the greatest number of clicks. When potential leads click on your post, and are led to your website, ensure that your landing page is engaging and relevant, so that you have a minimum bounce rate.

Likes – If your posts on social media have a lot of organic likes, you can rest assured that your content is meaningful and relevant for the audience. A high number of likes enhances your searchability, and hence, expands your reach.

Shares – While likes are common, shares are exceptional. We say this because, a Like says, ‘Yeah, this is some good content.’ But a Share says, ‘This is great content, you need to watch it too.’ Many shares legitimize your content on social media and increases the lead engagement.

Comments – The best thing about social media is that it initiates conversations and as we already know Facebook has announced at the beginning of 2018 that they are all about genuine interactions. You can make the most of this, by tracking the number and the nature of the comments you get on your posts. Comments are great feedback for you. It lets you know what is working and what is not, and how you can make things work. Getting many comments is a clear sign you are hitting the key points of interest of your audience.

Brand Mentions – Getting social mentions means that your brand has managed to seep into the minds of your audience. The more the followers talk about your brand on social media, the more chances you have of understanding what they think about you and how can it used to improve your impressions.

Profile Visits – By tracking the number of people who visit your profile, you can know how many people are engaging with your brand. Every time you make a new post, there is a potential that somebody is so impressed by your latest post that they will want to stake out your entire profile. Make your profile attractive but provide as much information as you can about your brand.

Active Followers – Having many followers means that you have a wide reach. Each follower proportionately increases your reach. But you need to monitor the active followers who engage with your brand regularly. Instead of aiming for a horde of followers who might not be interested in your brand at all, go for attracting followers who are actually relevant for your business.

So, engagement represents quite an important piece of the social media pie, a piece that should be taken into consideration when it comes to a successful ad campaign, or generally speaking, to your social media strategy.

LEADS

Up till now we have seen how social media can help you out when it comes to awareness, engagement and generating more traffic to your website, but how about the ROI? How many people out of the big pool of social media fans, followers actually generate new sales? If you cannot say your content is generating leads, well, this translates as you are misusing the wrong platform or as your content not being good enough.

You must be present where your potential customers are present. Most people use Facebook (82%), YouTube (75%), and Instagram (53%) at least once per week.

But this might not always apply to your business, hence, you need to do a little bit of research and see where your audience spends its time. Once you have done that, you can definitely start spreading your message. And do not forget that your communication must be authentic.

Needless to say how important social media is when it comes to product discovery. Before making a purchase, customers are looking for information about a product via social media channels. And this particular element encourages brads to promote their products, hoping their promotion comes in handy for those particular customers who are getting closer to an acquisition.

Besides awareness and engagement, social media is heading now more than ever towards being an important part in the business funnel.

With 55% of people buying products after social media discovery (as stated in the Mary Meeker’s report of Internet Trends in 2018), focusing on a strong social media strategy is vital. This translates as brands should start devoting a whole lot more time and resources into their social media selling approach.

And also keep an eye on your message to be on point. Customers can detect if a brand is not being genuine in their communication. So, just telling your customers to buy something just because your ad tells them so... Not really productive, but rather dangerous, as social media selling has become one of the most important factors when it comes to a purchasing decision.

Brands now have a great opportunity they could benefit from this trend to improve their social media strategy and start selling (more). Of course, this does not translate as integrating a sales pitch within all your messages, as this will not make people trust you or buy your products or even consider you. So, authenticity is without saying a very important aspect of communication. We encourage you to find your own way in which you could tailor an amazing experience for your customers. Take the time to personalize, as this will allow you to enjoy amazing results, and customers will appreciate you taking the time to guide them along this journey. Learn how to be a Social brand.

Conclusion

Successful campaigns need to be carefully researched, they need to be creative and appropriately crafted for your audience, hence you need to focus your attention on keeping track of your KPIs and making the best out of the execution. Basically, getting to know and really understanding the KPIs that are relevant for you and your business gets you closer to you being all set for a successful ad campaign. In other words, the craftmanship can now begin, sky is the limit and your ad campaign can start blooming and enticing customers.

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