Statistics are wonderful, but they can quickly become overwhelming. Online marketing makes it easy to gather statistics. The hard part is knowing what to do with the thousands of numbers we have access to. What matters and what doesn’t? How do we know what figures make a difference?
Watch Out For Vanity Metrics
Before we get into what matters, let’s talk a little about what doesn’t matter – at least not much.
It’s easy to get excited about some obvious numbers. Followers and “likes” stand out. They’re easy to see and they sound impressive. And having lots of both is a good thing!
At the same time, though, it’s important not to get carried away by these. In the end, they don’t mean as much as some other stats we’ll look at below.
One reason for this is that they don’t show if people are interested. A page “follower” isn’t going to see all of a page’s posts; in fact, they may see very few. The number of people you reach tends to be far lower. “Likes” mean a bit more, but still fall short when it comes to being a fair and accurate barometer of how your campaign is doing.
A part of the reason for this goes back to some shady practices that involved “buying” page followers or likes. Unscrupulous “marketers” would create fake accounts then sell likes and follows to businesses. On some platforms, especially Twitter, it was also common to follow an account hoping to get followed in return. In other words, it was all artificial. There was no real interest.
(We do want to point out that this is different from advertising your page or content, where you invite real people to follow or like your material).
Social media platforms have done a lot to curb that kind of behavior although it still exists to some extent. Still, it’s better not to get sidetracked on this shallow level.
Let’s Get Engaged
If you want a number that shows better how your posts are doing, check out your engagement rate. Some platforms, like Twitter, calculate and display it right on your analytics page. With others, you may have to figure it out yourself but the data you need is readily available.
An “engagement” is any interaction with a post. That can include likes, but it also takes into account shares, link clicks, comments, clicks to watch a video, and other interactions.
Your engagement rate is usually calculated on each post, meaning you can analyze closely what works and what doesn’t.
The formula is simple: the number of engagements divided by the reach of the post, multiplied by 100. This gives you a percentage.
So say your reach was 200 people, and there were 30 engagements. Thirty divided by 200 is .15. Multiply that by 100 and you have 15%. And that would be an incredibly high engagement rate – you’re knocking it out of the park!
Of course, you could look at a broader engagement rate and calculate it for all engagements versus the combined reach of all posts. Doing that every four weeks can give a general perspective.
It’s important to be consistent in how you measure the engagement rate of course. Even more importantly, take action on it. If some posts do well, you should learn from that. And improve on those that did poorly.
But what is a good engagement rate? It’s lower than you might imagine. Half a percent (0.5%) up to 1% is usually considered good. Over 1% is excellent.
A better engagement rate also helps increase your reach. Just think of what you see on social media. You may see a post because a friend shared it, commented on it, or the like. The same happens with your page’s posts – the more engagements they get, the more they spread. Yes, it’s kind of like being popular because you’re popular. But it works!
Some Other Important Stats
There are a couple of other numbers you can look at to see how you’re doing, as well.
Do you publish videos? The time viewed is a big factor! With YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms, you can check out numbers like “average time viewed” and the number of times viewed over 3, 10, or 30 seconds.
Link clicks to your site can also be important. If you’re promoting an article, product, or another page on your site, check to see how many people go to it from social media. This info can be gotten from your social media account and your Google Analytics. You’ll probably see a difference between those reports but this can even help you analyze some things about your site (more on that another time!).
Depending on your goals, there could be many other important statistics, too. It’s a matter of defining what can help you make the right choices for growth and improvement.
Conclusion
The sheer volume of numbers involved in social media can be overwhelming at first. But learning to pick out the important ones, like engagement rate, will let you learn from both successes and failures. Start diving in and looking around. Get a handle on the numbers so you can make data-driven choices that will lead to success!