Social media key performance indicators (KPIs) measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts across different periods and target demographics. By measuring the success of your campaigns, you can optimize strategies, improve performance, and ultimately achieve business goals.
In this guide, our experts share the best KPIs for social media, how to set them, the benefits of tracking them, and the tools available for doing so.
Key Takeaways
- Social media KPIs measure the success of social media campaigns and strategies.
- Tracking these KPIs for social media helps businesses optimize resources and make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.
- Third-party social media analytics tools like Sprout Social, Hootsuite, and Buffer can assist businesses in tracking the most important social media KPIs.
Table of Contents
What Are Social Media KPIs?
Social media KPIs help you monitor the growth of your social presence. They are customizable documents or templates used to evaluate whether you are achieving your campaign objectives.
KPIs for social media form a vital part of your social media marketing strategies. All social activities should be measured against them to assess the target audience’s reaction and reception. This will give you a clearer direction for your campaigns to help you reach your business goals.
By tracking the best KPIs for social media, your brand can identify the initiatives that drive the most engagement and conversions.
KPIs vs. Metrics: How Are They Different?
Many refer to KPIs and metrics interchangeably when talking about measuring business performance. However, the two are quite different in terms of scope and nature.
KPIs are directly tied to a company’s objectives and strategic goals. They measure the success of specific initiatives and determine whether the business is on track to achieve its targets. They provide a snapshot of the progress toward long-term goals and targeted outcomes.
In contrast, metrics are more detailed measurements that provide data about specific activities. They are quantitative data points used to monitor daily performance and can drill down into certain elements of business strategies.
So, while all KPIs are metrics (because they measure performance), not all metrics are KPIs.
Let’s illustrate this with an example: The primary goal for your business is to increase revenue in the next year. One of the KPIs would be to increase social selling by 10% in the following quarter. To track your progress toward achieving this, you need to track social media metrics like content referrals, engagement rate, conversion rate, and customer acquisition cost.
Benefits of Tracking Social Media KPIs
Tracking social media KPIs will help you understand the performance of your strategies, optimize their elements, and maximize their impact on your business goals. Here are the key benefits of monitoring social media metrics and KPIs:
1. Measure Performance
By measuring key indicators and metrics, you can keep a close eye on your campaigns, gauge their effectiveness, and identify areas for improvement. When you have a clear picture of how well your social media activities are performing, you'll always know what steps to take next.
2. Gain Audience Insights
Tracking KPIs over time will help you identify trends in audience behavior and changes in your industry. The more you understand your audience and your niche, the better you can position your brand. This enables you to create more relevant and engaging content and stay ahead of the competition in a crowded social media landscape.
3. Optimize Resources
Tracking social media performance will ensure you can effectively allocate important resources like time, money, and your team’s effort. Investing in tactics that deliver the best return on investment (ROI) can drive your business to long-term success.
4. Make Data-Driven Decisions
You can maximize social media impact through data-driven decisions, such as what type of content to produce, the best times to post, which platforms to prioritize, which audience segments to target, and more. By doing so, you can streamline your social media efforts and get the best results.
4 Best KPIs for Social Media
Social media KPIs help businesses gauge the effectiveness of their social media strategies, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. Here are social media KPIs you should keep an eye on:
1. Brand Awareness
One of the most crucial social media KPIs to track in 2024 is brand awareness. Measuring brand awareness helps you understand how your brand is perceived by your target audience. You can gain insights into the effectiveness of your content strategy on different platforms and determine whether your messaging resonates. Additionally, you can gauge your competitive position and strategize more effectively within your niche.
KPIs for brand awareness involve the following metrics:
- Impressions: The number of times your content is displayed, but not necessarily clicked or engaged with in any way.
- Reach: The number of unique users who have seen your content. This metric helps you assess the true size of your audience.
- Share of voice: The percentage of all online content and conversations about your brand compared to your competitors across all platforms. It is a good illustration of your market position.
2. Engagement
Engagement is another key indicator of social media success and how well your content resonates with your target audience. By measuring engagement, you can identify which types of content perform best and produce more of what your followers enjoy.
Engagement KPIs consist of the following metrics:
- Likes: This simple metric clearly indicates a post’s resonance with the audience.
- Comments: These go a step beyond a simple “like,” in that the user felt compelled to chime in and share their thoughts on your post. Comments provide insights into your audience’s preferences.
- Social shares: These indicate strong approval from your audience and extend your post’s reach.
- Engagement rate: The ratio of engagements to impressions gives you a picture of how engaged your audience is.
3. Website Traffic
Another important KPI for social media is website traffic. Tracking website traffic from social media helps you measure how effectively your posts drive visitors to landing pages, product pages, service listings, newsletter signup forms, and more. You can adjust your content strategy to entice more users to click and follow through on your desired actions. Google Analytics is the primary free platform for tracking these KPIs.
These metrics will help you gauge the effectiveness of social media campaigns in driving site traffic:
- New users: This metric counts the number of first-time web visitors.
- Session duration: Longer sessions indicate that visitors are engaging with your website content.
- Bounce rate: This is the percentage of visitors who leave your site after viewing only one page. Factors such as loading speed and landing page optimization can influence bounce rates.
4. Conversions
Converting engaged social media followers and website visitors into paying customers is the most important goal for all digital marketing strategies. Conversion KPIs will help you assess campaign ROI and enable more efficient use of your resources in the future.
Measuring social media conversions involves these primary metrics:
- Conversion rate: This is the ratio of conversions to visitors from social media.
- Revenue: Social selling on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn has increased revenue from social media. This includes the number of sales conversions from social media clicks.
- Non-revenue conversions: This tracks conversions that do not involve direct sales, such as filling out a form to attend a webinar or signing up for a brand’s newsletter for updates.
How To Set Social Media KPIs?
When establishing social media KPIs, it's crucial that they align with the company's overall business objectives. This process is not a one-time activity, as industry trends, customer behavior, and campaign goals shift and change over time.
Setting specific KPIs for each social media campaign and platform results in more detailed and data-driven reports for all marketing activities. It is also crucial to think SMARTER, which means leaving room for evaluation and re-evaluation of the established KPIs.
As business goals evolve, social media KPIs should also be adaptable to changing circumstances. To establish and track effective social media KPIs, the following steps are necessary:
- Clearly state the objective of the KPI and how tracking it will support the company's business goals.
- Name the KPI and make it specific by adding a value and timeline.
- Communicate the KPI with relevant stakeholders to align expectations.
- Collect benchmark data to analyze current performance and compare metrics over time.
- Understand industry benchmarks to set realistic social media campaign goals.
- Define the cadence of tracking KPIs to react quickly to developments.
- Regularly review and adjust KPIs to ensure their relevance to the company's changing business needs.
3 Methods To Track Social Media Metrics
After determining the crucial social media KPIs to monitor, the next step is to decide on the methods you will use to track them and communicate your accomplishments. You can adopt several approaches, including:
1. Native Solutions
One alternative is to track social media KPIs through the native analytics features each social media platform provides. This option is cost-effective, user-friendly, and suitable for social media managers who are only monitoring one or two accounts. Instagram Insights, Facebook Insights, Twitter Analytics, LinkedIn Analytics, and YouTube Analytics are some popular solutions offered by major platforms for tracking social media performance.
However, this approach may not be the best fit for teams managing multiple accounts across various social networks. Tracking metrics from different sources entails switching between multiple dashboards, making it more complicated to gather, compare, and evaluate outcomes.
2. Custom Reports
Generating custom reports entails consolidating social media KPIs into a single, easily understandable document for your team, managers, and business stakeholders. The process involves manually entering data gathered from various social channels into a single document, which should be presented in a visually appealing and concise manner.
To demonstrate how your work contributes to the brand's business objectives and impacts its bottom line, incorporate graphs, charts, and examples in your report.
3. Social Media Management Platform
If you are handling multiple accounts on various platforms for your brand's strategy, utilizing a social media management platform can simplify KPI tracking. These platforms streamline collecting, analyzing, and disseminating data, making it both efficient and effective.
3 Tools to Track KPIs for Social Media
Specialized social media management tools provide comprehensive data on social media KPIs and actionable insights into reach, engagement, and conversions. These are three of the best platforms that businesses can use today:
1. Sprout Social
Sprout Social is a comprehensive management platform that has just about everything you need to quantify the impact of your social media performance. Use it to unlock deep insights into what resonates with your customers and leads to conversions.
Key Features:
- Interactive charts and graphs for data visualization
- Cross-channel performance metrics
- Robust competitive analysis tools
- Trend analysis via historical data
Pros:
- Streamlined real-time reporting
- Segregation of paid vs. organic performance
- Performance overview across all connected profiles
Cons:
- Relatively expensive
Pricing:
- Standard: $249/seat/month (billed monthly) or $199/seat/month (billed annually)
- Professional: $399/seat/month (billed monthly) or $299/seat/month (billed annually)
- Advanced: $499/seat/month (billed monthly) or $399/seat/month (billed annually)
- Enterprise: custom pricing
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite’s streamlined analytics tools allow users to track all networks from a platform. With smart data and detailed reports, you can assess what’s working and identify areas for improvement. Hootsuite’s Advanced Analytics provides visualizations of which platforms, posts, and days of the week generate the most revenue.
Key Features:
- Unified dashboard to track social media KPIs for a wide range of platforms
- Recommended post times for maximum engagement
- Competitor analysis tools
- Various third-party integrations, such as Google Analytics, Salesforce, Adobe, etc.
Pros:
- Centralized management and analytics
- Automated and customized reports
- Optimized posting times
Cons:
- Steep learning curve
Pricing:
- Professional (1 user, 10 social accounts): $99/month (billed annually)
- Team (3 users, 20 social accounts): $249/month (billed annually)
- Enterprise (starts at 5 users and 50 social accounts): Custom pricing
3. Buffer
Buffer populates one intuitive dashboard for all social media data analytics and reporting. You can easily track campaign performance across multiple accounts and access in-depth insights into each social channel.
Key Features:
- Custom reports are updated daily
- Metrics for posts, stories, and branded hashtags
- Granular campaign tracking
- Recommendations for social media growth
Pros:
- Paid vs. organic results
- Detailed audience insights
- Robust collaboration features
Cons:
- Lacks advanced analytics features
Pricing:
- Free (up to 3 channels)
- Essentials (one channel): $6/month (billed monthly) or $5/month (billed annually)
- Team (unlimited team members, one channel): $12/month (billed monthly) or $10/month (billed annually)
- Agency (10 or more channels): $120/month (billed monthly) or $100/month (billed annually)
Social Media KPIs: Takeaways
Create effective social media campaigns by investing time and effort into measuring your ROI against the best social media KPIs — or consider hiring social media marketing companies to handle it for you!
By tracing these KPIs, you can gain valuable insights into which aspects of your channel require more attention and improvement.
Social Media KPIs FAQs
1. Which KPIs demonstrate social media ROI?
To demonstrate social media ROI, track the following:
- Referral traffic – Visitors from social media platforms
- Click-through rate – Clicks from social media posts
- Conversion rate – Percentage of social media users who completed a purchase
- Total revenue – Income directly attributed to social media activities
- Cost per conversion – Amount spent to acquire one conversion from social media
2. How do you measure KPIs on Instagram?
You can access Instagram Insights to measure campaign performance on the platform. This feature is available for business and creator accounts and provides data on your profile, posts, and stories. You can also track referral traffic from the link in your bio. Third-party tools like Sprout Social, Buffer, and Hootsuite provide more advanced analytics.
