What Is A Key Performance Indicator (KPI)?

KPI as a metric of social media aka KPI on social media proves how a brand’s social media is achieving its business goals. KPIs can be used to evaluate how successful companies are at reaching and converting their target audience. A company needs to be critical about their business success because just like Peter Drucker (famous marketing guru) said, “what gets measured gets done”. If a company or brand has a successful KPI it means that:

• Evidence of progress towards the company’s desired goal.

• To help achieve data-driven decision-making, it provides accurate data.

• Gauge changes in performance.

• The balance between leading and lagging indicators.

KPI On Social Media: What Are The Steps To Set Up KPIs?

Step 1: Setting Your Goals

You should know what you want to attain and what successful outcome you want to achieve, before using KPIs on social media. It is commonly known as setting a target and then tracking progress against that said target. You need to have a clear goal defined before you start defining KPIs on social media. But is there a way to define an effective goal? Yes, there is! You need to use the SMART criteria. Wikipedia defines SMART as an acronym that gives a criterion in the setting of objectives as follows:

• Specific – Choosing a specific objective.

• Measurable – You need to choose a metric with which you can measure its relation towards the goal.

• Attainable – Do you think this goal is a realistic one?

• Relevant – You need to measure a goal that is important to your company’s core business.

• Time-bound – Determine a realistic time at which you can achieve this goal. Companies usually expect to see instant results. However, you need to give a realistic amount of time for your social media actions to pick up.

Step 2: Determining The Relation Between Your Core Business Goal And A Specific Outcome

Before we begin, for a better understanding of how it works, let’s define some terminologies:

• Target – It refers to what you expect to achieve and what you consider a successful outcome.

• Leading indicators – It refers to the indicators you use to predict future success. For example, the number of comments and engagements your post got.

• Lagging indicators – What is the present situation and the indicators of past success.

To give you an idea, your specific outcome was converting some customers. Then what can be considered as your leading indicators for engagement kpi on social media? It could be the number of inquiries you get from your social media. So, the actual conversion rate can be your lagging indicator.

Step 3: Choose The Type Of KPI That Is Best Suitable For Your Goal

These are the different categories available in KPIs on social media:

• Activity –  It measures the efficiency of a specific process for producing a defined output.

• Inputs –  It measures the type, amount, or quantity of the resources that are being consumed in the processes.

• Outputs – The result of the process is measured.

• Outcomes – It measures the impact of the processes. For example, sales or customer retention.

• Project – The status of milestone progress of a specific project is measured.

Some Examples Of KPIs

Metrics can either be ratios or numbers. Therefore, we might have ratio metrics and number metrics. Here are some examples of common metrics which is used to track performance:

• Ratio metrics –  conversion rate, bounce rate, ROI.

• Number metrics –  page views, visits, conversions.

Step #4: Assign A Score To Your KPI

A KPI score, even when it comes to KPI on social media, is a score that has a value between 0.0 and 1.0. It represents how strong is the Actual Value of the KPI. Once you set a KPI in a KPI tool, it gets a score. Then, to know how there are faring, you look at the metrics scorecard.

What Are KPI Tools?

KPIs are specific to the company’s goals and desired results. Companies use business reporting solutions to monitor and generate insights from KPIs. Simply put, KPI tools will make your life easier, it saves your time and money. It uses data analytics to assign a score to your KPIs. It also gives you an instant image of how your business efforts are doing. Plenty of social media solutions come with a KPI tool that will provide analytics on how the activities in your social media are achieving your desired goals.

Engagement KPI On Social Media: How Does It Work For Social Media?

Social media metrics have to suggest the generation of traffic to your website, which increases leading generation and brand exposure. The first thing you need to keep in mind while choosing what social media metrics you should use is that they should help you measure ROI. Here are some things you need to ask when choosing the right metrics for engagement kpi on social media:

• What type of audience are you trying to reach? Are the leads that you are reaching qualified?

• Do these qualified leads engage with your brand/company?

• What is the amount of inquiries about your product or service coming from your social media?

• How many of the leads that are coming from social media do end up becoming customers?

You need to define your strategy before defining the best social media KPIs for your business.

• Defining your objective –  You need to set a clear goal to measure the engagement KPI on social media. (Tip – Use the SMART method helps).

• Assessing your data –  What data do you currently have and what kind of data are you not getting from social media?

• Defining what indicators measure success – You need to choose what is an indicator of success for you.

After doing the above mentioned, you can choose what kind of metrics will bring you the information you need.

KPI On Social Media: What Are The Most Important Social Media KPIs?

Although, the favourable or ‘important’ KPI on social media usually depends on what is important for your business, here are some common areas you should focus on to measure success:

1. Engagement

Within social media, engagement KPI on social media is one of the most important areas you should be concerned about. It is the base for all the other metrics’ success. If people on the internet don’t react to your content, there is nothing to look forward to. Engagement means the number of likes, shares, and comments on your social updates. There is no point in having a large fanbase because if they don’t interact with your content, it is highly unlikely they will buy something from you. Engagement KPI on social media is especially important when you are on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. For Twitter, the more retweets or likes your tweet gets, the better. Some common KPIs of engagement on social media are:  

• Clicks – The number of times users click on your social media post.

• Likes – The number of people who like your social media post.

• Shares – The number of times your post has been shared.

• Comments – Interactions from your users.

• Mentions – Some users mentioning your company or product.

• Profile visits – The number of users who visited your social media profile.

• Active Followers – The number of followers who actively interact with your brand.

Reach refers to how far your message goes. However, it’s an estimate because the number of people who saw your posts and the number of people who clicked on them can be different. Some common KPIs reach is:

2. Reach

Reach refers to how far your message goes. However, it’s an estimate because the number of people who saw your posts and the number of people who clicked on them can be different. Some common engagement KPIs on social media reach are:

• The number of followers – The number of people who are following you on social media. This could be the total number of people who might see your social media post.

• Impressions – It is the number of times your post has shown up on someone else’s feeds.

• Traffic data – What’s the percentage of your traffic that comes from your social media platforms?

3. Leads

After you know the number of people who follow you and interact with your brand, you can measure how many of your followers will want to buy from your company. Does having a huge fanbase translate into a high engagement KPI on social media? If your content doesn’t produce leads, you might be gearing it to the wrong crowd of people. Simply correct your customer profiling, niche down and try again. You won’t know until you start tracking, so track away!

Final Thoughts

Remember to only focus on the social media KPIs which are most relevant to the social media platforms your brand is active on. Also, keep in mind that every audience is different. Sometimes your ideal buyer doesn’t incline to hit “like,” but still closes. You don’t need to beat yourself up about it. Simply track what makes sense for your business and reflects success.

Best Social Media KPIs You Need To Track In 2023 FAQs

1. What KPIs should you be tracking?

Some typical things KPIs might track include:
– Revenue includes total revenue, average profits, and new customers.
– Employment statistics include employee performance, employee turnover, and vacancies.
– Customer service includes customer satisfaction, average call time, and efficiency.

2. What are the 5 key performance indicators?

– Revenue Growth.
– Income Sources.
– Revenue Concentration.
– Profitability Over Time.
– Working Capital.

3. What is a good engagement rate per impression?

Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook usually have higher engagement rates. It’s partly because of the nature of the format. You’re made to focus on the content, and you can either engage or scroll past it. On Instagram, around 2 percent is seen as a good social media engagement rate. Moreover, anything 3 percent or more can be considered great.

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