Social media KPIs are measurable values that can tell how well your social media efforts are going and how effectively they are contributing to your overall business objectives. By effectively measuring KPIs, you can not only direct your marketing efforts but also achieve a higher ROI. However, measuring KPIs is a task that is much easier said than done, as there are literally a plethora of performance indicators. Moreover, not all of these indicators support your overall business goals, or even the short-term objectives, as a matter of fact. So, what KPIs should you measure? In this article, we will answer that question by thoroughly discussing what KPIs are, which ones you should monitor, and what benefits they offer.
Understanding What Social Media KPIs Are
KPIs stand for key performance indicators, and unlike other generic statistics, social media key performance indicators focus on the outcomes that matter. Some common examples of these outcomes include business visibility, engagement quality, lead generation, or even sales impact.
While KPIs in social media provide measurable values, they are actually different from social media metrics. This is because social media metrics are raw data points, such as likes, shares, and comments. KPIs, on the other hand, are selected metrics that directly reflect success towards a goal, such as engagement rate, conversion, or cost per lead.
Even though both these values are different from one another, they can, nevertheless, be used together to evaluate performance and make data-driven decisions. By using metrics to gain data and KPIs to link the data to business objectives, you can transform your social media activity into actionable insights.
How To Choose The Best Social Media Marketing KPIs For Your Business?
As over 63% of the entire world’s population is on social media platforms, using these platforms to achieve overall business goals is an optimal choice. However, in order to achieve your business goals, you will first need to select the best social media marketing KPIs. Below, we have listed the key factors that you will need to consider when selecting social media KPIs for your business.
1. Align KPIs With Your Business Goals
Aligning KPIs with your business objectives is the first and most essential step in ensuring the success of your social media efforts. Therefore, you must ensure that the KPIs are directly reflecting your primary business objectives. Mentioned below are some common examples of business objectives for social media.
- Brand Awareness.
- Lead Generation.
- Sales and Revenue.
- Customer Retention.
2. Platform-Specific KPIs Selection
As each social media platform serves a different purpose, its KPIs also differ from one another. This means that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all KPI solution, because not only are the audience behaviors different, but also the platforms. To further promote your understanding of platform-specific KPIs, we have listed key social media platforms along with their core KPIs below.
- Instagram: Engagement rate, saves, story interactions.
- LinkedIn: Lead quality, profile clicks, form submissions.
- YouTube: Watch time, audience retention, subscribers gained.
- X: Impressions, engagement rate, link clicks.
3. Common Mistakes To Avoid When Selecting KPIs
While the sections we have discussed above may have given you the idea of what social media metrics & KPIs are, there are also some common mistakes that you must avoid. Although the right KPIs can ensure that your social media efforts are aligned and you are making data-driven decisions, there are some common mistakes that can create huge roadblocks when you select social media marketing KPIs. Below, we have listed some of the common mistakes that you must avoid at all costs.
- Tracking Too Many KPIs: This leads to confusion and a lack of focus.
- Ignoring Funnel Stages: Awareness, consideration, and conversion need different KPIs.
- Not Reviewing KPIs Regularly: What worked last quarter may not work now.
Social Media KPIs For Brand Awareness
Creating brand awareness is often the first step in the customer journey for many businesses, and it is likely the same for you. Although brand awareness means how familiar consumers are with your business, it is actually an umbrella term. This is because brand awareness also includes specific levels and types of consumer familiarity. However, by tracking the right social media KPIs for brand awareness, you can see how visible and recognizable your business truly is.
- Reach: This shows you the number of unique users who have seen your content. Tracking this metric can also help you measure how far your business has spread globally.
- Impressions: This metric indicates how many times your content has been displayed and how the audience has reacted to it. However, a high impression with low reach may mean that your social media efforts are targeting the same audience, not new users.
- Share of Voice: This metric will tell you how much visibility your brand has compared to the competitors.
These are some of the most important KPIs for social media, as these metrics can help you measure brand visibility and recall. By measuring these metrics, you can check whether the audience is actually becoming familiar with your business or not.
Social Media KPIs For Engagement
With brand awareness metrics, you can check how users are looking at your posts and account. However, with engagement metrics, you can check how users are interacting with your content. Due to this factor, these social media marketing KPIs become essential for evaluating content quality, audience interest, and long-term growth potential. As no engagement is akin to talking to a group of people, you will need to measure the following KPIs.
- Clicks: From organic marketing to paid social media efforts, these metrics can show the audience interaction with your content. Moreover, clicks can also tell whether the interactions are from your current followers or new users.
- Mentions: This metric can help you check the places users have mentioned your business. However, do note that this metric can not be tracked natively. Therefore, you will need to rely on a monitoring tool.
- Profile Visits: By tracking this metric, you can see the users that are visiting your social media profiles. Also, this metric will help you understand what actions the user are taking when they visit your profile.
By tracking engagement metrics, you will be able to guide your content optimization, posting strategies, and audience targeting efforts. While tracking this metric can be a bit difficult as you may need to rely on an additional monitoring tool, we recommend that you invest in reliable social media marketing services for effective engagement tracking.
Social Media KPIs For Conversion
Now that you know how to track both awareness and engagement, the next social media KPIs you should track are conversion rates. These metrics are among the most essential to track as they reveals whether your efforts are actually contributing to your business growth or not. In order to effectively measure your conversion rates, you will need to keep track of the following metrics.
- Leads Generated: This metric will help you see the number of customers your social media efforts were able to bring in.
- Sales Reveune: With this metric, you can check how well your products are selling and which audience segment is mostly buying them.
- Non-Revenue: This is the last social media metric for tracking conversions. This metric can help you track all the non-product or service-related actions taken by a customer. These actions may include newsletter signups or white paper downloads.
Use The Right Social Media KPIs To Grow Your Business
Tracking social media KPIs is an important part of any strategy for social media marketing. These key performance indicators can provide you with detailed insights into whether your efforts will succeed or not. By proactively monitoring the KPIs we have listed in this article, you will be able to ensure optimal performance for your business. Furthermore, it will also promote your understanding of the different stages of the funnel for your business objectives.
About Social Media KPIs (FAQs)
How often should I review social media KPIs?
If you want to keep track of trends and your brand awareness, then you can monitor KPIs for social media on a monthly basis. However, if you want to optimize your active campaigns, then a weekly review is the ideal option.
What is the 70/20/10 rule in social media?
This rule means that 70% of your posts should be built to provide brand value, 20% should be the content shared from other sources, and 10% should be promotional content.
Can social media KPIs directly measure ROI?
Yes, social media KPIs can directly measure ROI, but you will need to combine them with tracking tools like UTM links and CRM systems.
Are KPIs the same for all social media platforms?
No, KPIs are not the same for all social media platforms. This is because each platform has a different audience. Therefore, you will need to choose KPIs based on the platform strengths and your overall business goals.
Are social media KPIs different for small businesses?
Yes, KPIs for small businesses are different as they have lower visibility, leads, and engagement, rather than a large reach.
Aadiv Atharv is a results-focused Digital Marketing Specialist with expertise in performance marketing, social media strategy, and conversion optimization. He excels at crafting creative, ROI-oriented campaigns that help brands connect with the right audience. His blend of creativity and technical skill makes him a powerful force in today’s competitive digital landscape.
