Social Media Metrics to Track in 2023

Tracking your efforts on social media platforms is key to understanding the effectiveness of your campaigns. Knowing which social media metrics to focus on can help you better measure success.

Social media provides incredible opportunities to reach potential customers and boost brand engagement. It’s important to ensure you take full advantage of all social media platforms.

01 Social media reach

Reach is a metric you should follow closely, especially if you’re running a social media campaign. 

Social media reach will tell you how many people have seen posts on your social channels and how the content spreads across social networks. 

This metric is an effective way to measure how well your content resonates with your audience.

Tracking how it changes over time allows you to understand what kind of content works best for your particular audience and adjust accordingly.

Moreover, reach indicates the size of your desired audience. You can assume that followers are interested in your message and, possibly, in the product. 

The higher reach, the bigger the audience could have seen your product. 

02 The volume of mentions

Analyzing social media data can help you understand customer behavior. 

One social media metric that can provide invaluable insight is the volume of mentions. This metric will tell you how often people talk about your brand. Also, it will tell you whether or not those conversations are positive. 

By keeping track of the number of people talking about a product or brand, companies can determine how significant their presence is and focus their social media strategy accordingly. 

Tracking this metric also allows social media campaigns to be monitored in real-time and make improvements on messaging quickly if needed. 

Measuring the volume of mentions from social channels helps spot any seasonal changes in interest. 

Overall, tracking social media mentions is an incredibly useful way to measure the success of current marketing initiatives, detect new opportunities, and ensure your content resonates with the right people.

03 Social media impressions

In a nutshell, impressions are the number of times a post, ad, or other content is displayed to users on a given platform. This is different from reach, which is the number of people who actually see the content.

So why is it important to track impressions?

Tracking this metric can help marketers better understand how their content is performing and how it resonates with their target audience.

If your impressions are consistently getting higher, that’s a sign that your content is resonating with your followers and reaching new people. On the other hand, if impressions are decreasing, it may be time to adjust your content strategy.

It can also help you identify trends and compare the performance of different pieces of content. And that’s invaluable data for any marketer who wants to track social media efforts.

04 Engagement metrics: mentions, shares, likes

Engagement metrics measure how much your audience interacts with your content and how often they like, comment, and share your posts.

Algorithms that decide which content to show first on a timeline consider your social media account’s number and type of interactions. So, mentions, likes, clicks, shares, and comments are essential for a broad reach.

05 Engagement rate

Engagement rate is one of the most important metrics, as it can tell you a lot about your social media performance. It’s a measure of how much interaction your posts are getting relative to the number of followers you have. 

A high engagement rate shows that your posts resonate with your audience, while a low engagement rate suggests you need to rethink your social media strategy. 

One of the best ways to increase your engagement rate is by creating exciting and relevant content for your target audience. Think about your followers – what kind of content would they like to see?

My observations tell me that organic mentions are an essential factor impacting engagement and reach. It’s worth monitoring brand mentions and conducting interactions. Your followers will appreciate that. As a result, it will be much easier to build a community. Also, you can improve customer satisfaction by responding to client complaints.

06 Virality rate

This metric measures the rate at which users share and spread content on a social network.

A high virality rate indicates that many users share the content with friends and followers. This helps increase the reach and visibility of content.

Content that goes viral is generally more engaging and resonates with a larger audience. By tracking virality, marketers can understand what kind of content resonates with their audience and create more of that kind of content.

07 Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis will tell you whether the talk around your brand (the volume of mentions) is positive, negative, or neutral. This social media metric is especially useful when you’re running social media marketing campaigns. 

Initially, a high number of mentions might suggest that the campaign is successful. After all, people are talking about your brand. 

But that’s not the whole picture. 

A high volume of mentions and prevailing negative sentiment is asking for trouble. It means that a social media crisis is on its way, and you have to implement your crisis management plan into action. 

08 Audience growth rate

The audience growth rate measures the rate at which your audience grows over time.

A high growth rate indicates that your campaigns are effective, while a low growth rate indicates that you need to focus your social media efforts on different tactics.

It’s also a great way to track your progress and make adjustments as needed.

09 Share of voice

Share of voice indicates what percentage of the whole discussion was generated by a social media account. 

The more people talk about your company online, the better your channels perform. Combining this metric with social media sentiment analysis will tell you who is talking about your company and how they feel about it.

The share of voice is the creme de la creme of your social media analysis. 

How influential is your profile? Are you able to spark discussion among your followers?

In other words, the share of voice metric will help determine whether you’re the industry leader or not. 

10 Presence Score

Are you aware of how popular your brand’s popularity on social media? No? Don’t worry. 

We created the metric to help you understand awareness around your brand, competitors, or topics of your interest.

Presence Score metric allows checking brand/topic online popularity in a given period. It helps to measure brand awareness and evaluate marketing and PR efforts.

Presence Score operates on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is achieved only by huge, globally recognized brands.

11 Reputation Score

When running your social media accounts, you need to take care of your online reputation – it affects how potential customers perceive your brand and business.

If your online reputation is negative, attracting new customers and building trust with existing customers can be difficult.

Additionally, negative reviews and comments can spread quickly across the internet and have a lasting impact on your business.

Therefore, it is important to actively monitor and manage your online reputation to protect your brand image.

12 Video views

According to the latest digital marketing trends, short-form videos will continue to be an important tool for businesses in 2023. 

Video marketing is highly shareable, making it easier to reach a wider audience. A lot of businesses have already adopted video content as a tool for marketing and communication.

That’s why it’s worth paying attention to video views. They indicate how many people have watched your videos. 

This is an important metric to track because it gives you an idea of how engaging your videos are.

13 Click-through rate (CTR)

Click-through rate (CTR) is a metric that measures the number of clicks a post receives divided by the number of impressions. In other words, it measures how many users clicked links in social media posts.

A high CTR means your post is interesting and encourages the audience to click.

A low CTR, on the other hand, may indicate that your post is not resonating with your audience, and you should rewrite it.

CTR varies across different platforms. A post with a high CTR on one platform might perform differently on other social media channels. In addition, each post format can also have different CTR averages.

14 Top referring social media channels

This metric measures the number of people who come to your website from a social media platform. High referral traffic can indicate that social media is an effective way of driving website traffic.

By monitoring the top referring channels, you can discover which channels are relevant for your business.

How to measure?

You can use various analytics tools to track your referral traffic. Google Analytics offers a tool called Source/Medium, which allows you to track your website’s traffic sources. You can use this data to identify the top referring social media channels.

15 Cost-per-click (CPC)

Marketers should measure Cost-per-click (CPC) to ensure that their campaigns are performing optimally and that their advertising budget is being used efficiently. By tracking CPC, you can identify which campaigns are performing the best.

This social media metric helps marketers evaluate their advertising campaigns’ return on investment (ROI) by providing information about each click’s cost.

How do you measure success rate of a social media campaign?

The success rate of a social media campaign can be measured using several key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your campaign goals. These can include metrics such as reach, impressions, engagement rate, click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and ROI. Analyzing these KPIs provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts and helps inform future strategies. Success is often a combination of these metrics, indicating a well-rounded, effective social strategy.

What are social media metrics?

Social media metrics are data and statistics that give you insights into your social media marketing performance. They can be measured using a social media analytics tool and can include a wide range of information, such as engagement, reach, impressions, click-through rates, conversion rates, follower growth, and more. These crucial social media metrics provide a snapshot of how your content is performing, how users are interacting with it, and how your efforts are impacting your business goals. Understanding these metrics is key to refining your social media strategy and driving successful campaigns.