12 Social Media Metrics to Measure Your Success

Social Media

Having a social media campaign involves more than just posting content. You need to know how many people your campaign reaches and its impact. Specifically, social media metrics can help you track performance and refine your campaigns.

But with so many metrics, getting details from all of them may lead to information overload. Moreover, some metrics are similar and may contain repetitive information. That means that you should focus only on social media metrics that matter.

1. Reach

Reach refers to the number of people who see your posts. When calculating the reach rate, you must account for the percentage or difference between your followers and non-followers. A post that reaches many non-followers implies that many people love your content and are sharing the posts. It may also indicate that your work performs quite well in the algorithms. As such, a higher reach rate among non-followers is an opportunity to expand your target and increase your followers.

2. Impressions

Impressions rate is the number of times your content is seen. Remember that reach rate focuses on how many people, yet impressions are all about how people view your content. For example, assume your post reaches 100 people.

If 10 of the 100 people view your post five times, then your post will reach 100 people but have an impression rate of 150. So, impressions are often higher than reach because one person might view your post many times.

Many impressions can help you understand what needs to be done to continue gaining traction. Contrastingly, a low impression rate can help you determine what you shouldn’t do to create effective content.

3. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is the percentage of engagements (by followers and non-followers) with your post. In other words, it’s what viewers do to your post. Likes, shares and comments all fall under this metric. 

So, the higher the number of likes, comments, shares, and even profile visits from your posts, the more interesting (or disgusting) your post is, translating to a higher engagement rate.

A screenshot of the like, dislike, share, and download dashboard on YouTube.

YouTube has made things a bit easier by including both like and dislike buttons. Many dislikes coupled with negative comments signify that your post didn’t meet expectations.

4. Amplification Rate

Amplification rate refers to the number of times followers share your post or the ratio of shares per post to the number of followers. To get its percentage, take the total number of times a post is shared, divide the total number of your followers, and then multiply it by 100. A higher amplification rate is an indication of more shares, meaning a higher reach and lots of engagements. On the other hand, you may have to review and improve your posts if they draw a low amplification rate. 

5. Video Views

People might see and even engage with your post, but that doesn’t mean they watched the attached video. That said, video views are the number of times your audience watches your video. This metric lets you know how much time people spend watching your video. It’s important to note that video views vary from one social media platform to the other. Some measure the seconds or minutes a video is watched to consider it a view while others simply consider opening the video a view regardless of the time spent on it.

6. Video Completion Rate

As seen with video views, you may see how many people stuck to your video to the end. Video completion rate refers to the ratio of the number of people who watch the complete video to the number of total video views. A higher completion rate means that people love your content. Otherwise, you may have to rework or improve your future videos to make them more compelling.

7. Virality Rate

Like amplification rate, virality rate focuses on the number of times your post is shared. However, the difference lies in who shares the video. Whereas amplification measures the number of shares per follower, virality calculates the number of shares per impression. A higher virality rate shows that your post is shared widely. One thing to note is that every time your post is shared, the more your impressions increase. So, a viral post generally means success with your social media campaign.

8. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the number of times people click links on your post for more information or to make a purchase. To calculate CTR, divide the total clicks of a post by the total impressions, then multiply by 100.

9. Conversion Rate

Sometimes, you may want to know how many people clicked your links and went a step further, say, bought your product. As such, the conversion rate measures the number of people who click through your social media post links, subscribe to your services, buy your products or read your articles. You can calculate the conversion rate by dividing total conversions by total clicks.

10. Customer Satisfaction Score

Customer satisfaction score outlines the level of customer satisfaction. Common scores questions include “How would you rate your overall level of satisfaction?” and “Did we meet your expectations?” The score can be on a scale of one to five, one to 10, or, at times, in percentage. A higher score means your audience or clients are happy with your content or product.

11. Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Net promoter score measures customer loyalty by telling you who would likely promote your content, product, or service.The metric is based on the question, “How likely would you recommend us (company, product, or service) to a friend?” Here, your customers rate their answers on a scale of zero, or sometimes one, to 10.

Answers fall under a three-category score range, namely:

  • Detractors: 0-6
  • Passives: 7-8 
  • Promoters: 9-10

In addition to measuring loyalty and potential success, NPS helps you determine customer satisfaction levels. The higher your NPS, the more satisfied your customers will be and the more they’ll promote you. 

12. Cost per Click (CPC) and Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM)

CPC is the amount you pay for every click your post gets while CPM is what you pay for every 1000 impressions on your social ad. In essence, CPC focuses on action while CPM is about the views your post gets.

Bottom Line

Social media metrics help you monitor your campaign by measuring how people perceive your brand or product. Some of the most crucial social media metrics include reach, impression rate, virality and CPM. CTR and conversion rate come top of the list because they indicate how many people liked your campaign and proceeded to buy your product. NPS might help you understand whether customers love your products and if they’re willing to promote your business.

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