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5 Must-Have Social Media Metrics for an Effective Social Media Report

Want to prove that social media marketing is an essential part of your company’s marketing strategy?

Many don’t take social media as seriously as other aspects of marketing. However, a well-thought out Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok strategy can raise awareness about your brand, drive traffic to your website, and generate leads for your sales team.

Your next reporting meeting may be an ideal opportunity to pull out some numbers and show company stakeholders how valuable your social media accounts are to your brand.

To make a compelling case, here’s what metrics you should include in your report.

Impressions

Although many people only pay attention to likes and comments, these aren’t the only social media metrics you should track. While comments can be a good sign of how engaged your audience is, likes are often considered a vanity metric.

For example, people may save your post because they find it useful, but they don’t double-tap it, so the number of likes may be misleading.

On the other hand, impressions track how many times your post has been displayed to social media users. It can tell you a lot about how successful you are at raising brand awareness on social media. Even if someone only scrolls down without engaging with your content, it’s still a chance to convert at some point.

Reach

How many people have actually seen your post? This metric can be extremely valuable for your social media marketing strategy. If you reach a lot of people but other metrics like comments or shares are low, it may indicate that your content doesn’t resonate well with the audience and that you need to work on your targeting.

Also, tracking reach can give you a better idea of how aware people are of your business.

Engagement

If you’re looking to build a community using your social media profiles, you must have an engaged audience. If your followers aren’t interacting with you, you may need to prompt them to do so.

And if your posts have a lot of comments and shares, it means that you’ve found the way your audience wants you to communicate with them and the type of content they enjoy most. A high engagement rate means your followers see your content as helpful, entertaining, and/or informative.

Click-Through Rate (CTR)

The click-through rate should have its place in your social media report since it can show how much traffic your Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram pages drive to your landing pages.

Are your followers clicking on the links you’re sharing with them? Tracking CTR is the only way to find out.

A high CTR can compensate for low impressions. Even if fewer followers have seen your post (but interacted with it), it means you’ve hit the bull’s eye with the content.

Social Media ROI

The stakeholders will probably tell you this at some point: “Okay, you’ve got lots of likes and shares, but is the money we’re investing paying off?”

This is where social media ROI steps in. Tracking how much direct sales, revenue, or lead generation comes from social media is critical if you want to show how important a great social media strategy is for your brand.

Let the Numbers Speak

Use your report wisely to highlight what’s going well, what can be improved, and how valuable social media platforms are in communication with your audience.

But don’t forget this.

Your numbers alone won’t tell the decision-makers a lot without context. Compare your results against benchmarks and trend reports so the stakeholders can understand better what’s going on your brand’s social media accounts and make other decisions more quickly.