Social media is an online platform that facilitates interaction among people around the world. It is perhaps most people’s favorite interaction platform. I’m sure by now you have seen memes and videos of people sited around the dinner table but everyone is busy on their phones and in some cases, laptops or iPad. In as much as it is better to interact with people who are in front of you, social media introduced more and interesting opportunities for interaction. And in marketing, you have to reach people where they are. It is a principle that has been observed since the genesis of marketing.
Marketers noticed that everyone was drifting to social media for interaction and it was only natural for them to come up with a way of reaching to people where they are spending most of their time. Therefore, social media marketing became a thing. However, there has to be a way of determining how well your marketing strategy is doing. In this new social media platform, what then are the best methods for tracking how you are doing? Here are the essential KPIs for tracking social media marketing.
- Exposure
Exposure is simply about how many people notice you or are exposed to your marketing. The concept behind it is simple; the more people see your message or ad, the higher your chances of getting some interaction or engagement like clicks, likes shares, comments, among others.
It boils down to how many platforms you are represented in. You should be available on all the major social media platforms that would best send out your message as well as the ones that would best reach your preferred audience. For example, if you are a photographer, it makes sense to focus your ad on Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social media platforms that focus on visual elements as the main media.
Furthermore, you should organize your content to fit each platform you would like to appear. It is all about exposure. Even if you focus mainly on image-based media, you can still tailor your ad to be something that can be displayed on Facebook or Twitter. These platforms comfortably support image-based media. I hope you get the idea.
- Interaction or Feedback
The other KPI you should consider in social media marketing is interaction or feedback. You see, your ad is out there because there is something you want from particular people. The beautiful thing about social media is that it provides various ways for people to interact or give you feedback regarding your ad or message. There are likes, comments, shares, and no feedback.
Everyone is familiar with the concept of likes. The more likes you get on something you post on social media, the more you know people have seen your ad and they have given positive feedback; a ‘like’ is positive feedback. Of course, thumbs down indicates dislike – negative feedback. Shares are also another form of positive feedback and they play a very important role in exposure. In fact, a share means that your audience liked your ad so much that they had to share with their social circle.
One share is a very powerful thing because there is no limit to how far it can go (okay, the number of the human population is the limit, but still that is A LOT). Comments let you know the degree of engagement of your audience with your ads or content by making things a bit more specific. Likes and shares are somewhat vague because they tell you the general reaction but comments make things personal. Monitor how people are interacting with your ads to determine the impact of your social media marketing.
- Conversions
Even if you have all the exposure and interaction in the world, if you are not attaining the main goal of your marketing, you are losing. Something is not right.
Unless your main goal was to get exposure or get people to interact with your ad or just give feedback, chances are that you want to be making some money out of your social media marketing.
It makes sense to monitor how many conversions you are getting. Are you close to your target or do you need to tweak a thing or two here and there? If your goal is to make money or get clients, then this is an obvious KPI you should monitor to determine how your social media marketing is doing.
