There’s no way around the necessity of managing social media accounts, no matter how much we attempt to put it off. You need a social media plan to increase attention and sales for every business that has a website or physical locations.

So how can you determine the best course of action and whether or not it is successful? By digging into the numbers. And that’s why you need analytics for social media.

Just what do we mean when we talk about social media measurement tools?

When you launch a campaign on social media, should you…

Hit ‘post’, sit back, cross your fingers and hope that your method works?
Or…

Keep a watch on the number of ‘Likes,’ ‘Shares,’ ‘Retweets,’ and other engagement metrics, and see how they compare to the performance of your website and other branded assets.
Even if you’re a complete rookie, I’m ready to wager a week’s worth of steamy-hot mochas that you know it’s option b.

Yet, it is very hard to monitor all of your online activity, even if you limit yourself to a single social media page. Thankfully, technology exists to facilitate one’s task.

The success of your efforts on one or more social media sites, as well as their influence and final results, may be tracked with the help of specialised software. Most programmes transform large amounts of information like impressions, interactions, mentions, and so on into visual representations.

Keeping tabs on your social media initiatives is important

You wouldn’t want to blindly fly a plane to an unknown location, and the same logic should apply to your social media operations.

It’s important to keep up with the latest developments in the world of social media if you want to get the most out of your time spent there. That is, it’s important to assess the situation and determine where improvements are needed.

Keeping tabs on your social media activity allows you to…

• Improve and perfect your approach to social media advertising.
• Get your message across more effectively.
• Realize where you stand in the market.
• Benchmark your work against your competition
• Maximize the campaign’s return on investment by making the most of the campaign’s tertiary advantages, such as increased website traffic, leads, subscribers, and more

By compiling relevant information, you may find solutions to pressing problems such…

• How can I change my strategy to attract more sales?
• Where am I failing to connect with my target demographic?
• What are the ideal days of the week to publish to maximum engagement?
• What sorts of material does my audience respond best to?
• Where do I rank versus my nearest competitors?
• How can I gain a competitive advantage over my rivals?
• The number of leads I get from my postings isn’t what I’d like it to be.

What should you be looking at when it comes to social media metrics?

Your goals should dictate the metrics you select to monitor. As a result, you need to do some thinking before you dive in… SMART objectives, to be precise. Intelligent targets are…

Specific: Think more along the lines of “get a thousand additional likes” than “raise your Social abilities.”
Measurable: avoid jargon like “extend your reach” in favour of “X amount of new Followers.”
Attainable: you shouldn’t set yourself up for disappointment by aiming too high.
Relevant: Your end aim should make sense in the context of your larger business objectives.
Timely: the final component of a SMART objective is a deadline, such as “within 6 months.”

With defined social media objectives in hand, you can pick the indicators you care about most to track your progress. Verify that the metric has some bearing on the objective. Tracking Facebook-referred traffic to your website and the indicators on your site that define your conversion will allow you to gauge the success of your Facebook marketing efforts in terms of actual sales.
But what measures are most accurate? Here are a handful that ought to come in handy.

Rate of growth in audience size

Keeping count of viewers is insufficient. The rate of expansion of your audience is information you must have (or shrinking, but hopefully not).

By monitoring the rate at which your audience is growing, rather than just the numbers themselves, you may learn which of your company’s actions are helping or hurting your audience expansion.

Social conversion

Keep a close eye on your conversion rate because it is the most crucial indicator of success. It reveals how many of those you communicate with actually take the desired action. That action, which may be buying, subscribing, or requesting a consultation, will be your primary focus.

Keeping tabs on conversions helps tie your social media strategy into the bigger picture of your company’s goals and finances.

Rate of engagement

The percentage of individuals reached by your content that actually engage with it. As you might have high engagement without corresponding increases in conversions, it is not the most informative indicator on its own. You know you could be generating a lot more money if you optimised the bottom of your sales funnel if your engagement rate is high.

Impressions

Each time your social media posts reach a new audience member, you’ve made an impression. In contrast to engagement, those who view your material may not respond in any way. The impression is made by the sight of it.

Tracking impressions allows you to compare them to other metrics like engagement and conversion rates, helping you pinpoint where in your plan you need to make adjustments.