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The Most Important KPIs in Social Media Marketing in 2020

By Snap Agency January 14, 2020

As another year begins, we’ve reached a natural time for people—and companies—to take stock of the past 12 months and set performance goals for the new year. Setting and monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) is a valuable way to determine if the current performance of your website and social media is in line with your goals. 

Without proper measurements in place, it can be tough to set reasonable expectations and define success. Yes, there are countless ways to collect all sorts of statistics. But not every stat is worth measuring for your business or social media marketing. The question is this: how should a brand determine which indicators to measure, how to measure them, and what those measurements mean? Let’s find out. 

What Are Social Media KPIs?

When someone at the morning meeting asks how the brand is doing on social media this month, key performance indicators will provide the data needed to answer this question. Beyond showing how many likes or comments resulted from yesterday’s Instagram post, or how many new followers your brand received on Twitter, social media KPIs measure whether or not your social media channels are achieving your overall goals. Social media KPIs can track almost anything, but without knowing which KPIs are crucial to your brand’s success, all the data in the world won’t help increase your social ROI.

How to Set the Right KPIs for Your Brand

Your KPIs should vary depending on what social media platforms your brand utilizes most heavily. For example, it makes no sense to track the virality (chance of “going viral”) rate on a high-level Facebook post designed to appeal to a niche consumer base. Still not sure exactly what we mean? Consider the below factors as you determine which social media KPIs will be the most beneficial for your brand to track.

Lagging vs. Leading Indicators

Two different indicators can help categorize what KPIs you track: lagging and leading. Lagging indicators show how your social media has performed in the past, and leading indicators show how your social platforms are currently doing. Before setting your social media KPIs for 2020, you need to decide which perspective will bring more value to your brand.

SMART KPIs

Many experts recommend using the SMART model to help choose the right social media KPIs. By making your goals specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-sensitive, you’ll be able to set realistic expectations. 

4 KPIs You Should Be Measuring

You probably understand the value of KPIs if you’re already using them to measure the success of your social media marketing. However, if any of these four critical KPIs aren’t currently in your performance measurement arsenal, you’re missing out on some key stats. 

Post Impressions

Add up your followers and connections across all social media channels. This sum illustrates the total reach of your content. But not all of these connections will see your posts, which limits your marketing potential

There are a number of ways to track impressions or the number of times your content showed up on people’s screens. You can measure the impressions on a single post (on one platform), track your content’s reporting period (one week, one month, etc.), or compare your current post impressions to the impressions on past content. No matter how you measure it, knowing just how far your content reaches is invaluable.

Post Engagement

Once you know how many people see your posts, it’s wise to investigate which consumers are actually interacting with the content. Social media platforms have drastically increased post engagement possibilities. You can track applause rates (likes, favorites, claps, etc.), average engagement, post-amplification, and more. The higher your engagement rate, the more valuable your content—and the higher your potential ROI.

Conversions

The whole point of utilizing social media is to help your brand inspire its followers to take action. Whether this means joining your email, liking your Facebook business page, or requesting a quote, tracking conversions shows how often these desired actions are achieved. You can do this by monitoring clicks and conversions, dividing conversions by total clicks, and multiplying by 100. If the resulting number is not in line with your goals, it may be time to make some changes to your social media strategy.

Do More With Your Social Media Marketing in 2020

By driving performance and helping to create and measure reliable growth points, social media KPIs allow you to both identify your brand’s strengths and reveal its weaknesses. As you prepare for success in the new decade, setting the right key performance indicators is essential. Work with an expert to ensure you know which KPIs are most beneficial, how to track them, and how to use those results to prime you for growth. Contact us today to make sure your KPIs are ready to roll.