Social Media Metrics You Should Be Tracking in 2023

Social media strategies needs to be measured properly. Point blank. Focusing on the amount of followers your TikTok has gotten over the past month is only going to get you so far - in fact, it’s not going to do much at ALL. So many marketers and business owners don’t think to look past the data found on the ‘overview’ tab.

No matter what you use your social media for, great marketing requires good data. Therefore, your social media strategy must include social media metrics. Without tracking your social media engagement metrics, there is a high chance you won't get the best out of your social media presence. Also, you might not be getting your money's worth.

Social media metrics provide you with an inside look at how your channels are doing and how your target audience sees you. After all, you will want to know if you are getting a good ROI (return on your investment.) 

Over the past years, social media has become broad, advanced, and complicated that it might be challenging to know the metrics to track and which to ignore.

As a result, in this article, you will get the eight most important social media metrics you should be tracking in 2023 to boost and ensure you hit your social media marketing mark.

What are Social Media Metrics?

Understanding how your audience interacts with you online will help you monitor the status and reputation of your brand.

Therefore, social media metrics are statistics, data, and other valuable information that shows your marketing performance and how well your social media strategy is doing.

Social media metrics are the foundation for continued growth and progress because they help you understand anything from how many people view your content to how much money you make from social media. Without them, you won't know whether your efforts are stimulating business or not.

Why Social Media Metrics Tracking Matters

Tracking social media engagement metrics is essential because they show how successful a social media content or campaign is, how great or poor your social strategy is performing, and the rate at which your social media will impact your business. Metrics give you an idea of how your plan or goal is going; therefore, no matter what your goals are, tracking your social media metrics can keep you on track to ensure your goals are met. 

Also, social media tracking leads to increased budgets and improved access to resources. It will also give you a general picture of how well your social profile is and the health of your brand.

Last but not least, social media metrics tracking can help you understand your customers better, effectively track ROI, strengthen your brand's online presence, and gain happier customers. Happier customers = happier revenue. 😉

8 Top Social Media Metrics to Track in 2023

The key to successful social media evaluation is knowing which metrics, in light of your goals and objectives, are most important to you and your brand.

REACH

The reach metrics are one you should track and follow closely. It is a social media metric that captures the number of people who view your content. Tracking the reach metrics is a great way to monitor both your overall reach and the reach of each particular post, story, or video.

Given that it directly affects conversion rates, it is one of the most vital social media KPIs you will need to track in 2023.

Not only overall reach - but, individual content reach as well. Here’s what we mean:

CONVERSION RATE

Conversion rates refer to the fraction of visitors that come to your website and perform various activities. This includes subscribing to your newsletter, downloading your eBook, registering for an event, and more.

CONVERSION DOES NOT HAVE TO = SALES.

As a result, conversion rates are one of the most important aspects of social media and should be one of the metrics you should track. This is because you will get a detailed analysis of your content's relevance to the audience and how much money your social media marketing is making. 

This metric is crucial because it gives you a deeper understanding of which of your most reliable and active social media channels is producing results you can accept. This metric can be very hard to monitor if you don’t have the right systems in place between your customer journey. We will do an entire blog post dedicated to this, but we’ll leave you with these two words: Google Analytics.

COST-PER-CLICK (CPC)

This is for our business friends who are ready to dive into paid social ads.

Cost-per-click refers to the price you pay every time a user clicks on a paid social ad. For instance, if you have a paid ad on Instagram, your CPC is how much you pay Instagram for each time one of your paid ads is clicked. 

If you invest a huge amount of money in advertising and marketing across several platforms, you would want to check your total spending and determine if the money spent on each platform's advertising is worth it. There is no better way to go about this than tracking your CPC.

To calculate CPC, divide the total ad spend by the total measured clicks. Multiply by 100 to get the result as a percentage.

CLICK-THROUGH RATE

This is an essential metric to track because it shows how often and the number of people who clicked on a link in your content (stories, ads, email) to access extra content on your website or another web platform that belongs to you and your business.

The CTR metric is a reliable indicator that tells you the number of people who viewed your content and clicked to read more and how effective your social media content is in advertising your product. 

To calculate the CTR, divide the number of clicks you got for a post by the total number of impressions. Next, multiply it by 100 to get your CTR in percentage form.

What does CTR tell you? In a nutshell, it tells you that whatever you did made your audience interested enough to learn more - it’s an amazing metric! If you’re noticing an increase in your CTR month-over-month, but your sales or leads aren’t increasing, that tells you it’s time to evaluate your sales process, website, or customer experience!

ENGAGEMENT RATE

Engagement rate refers to the number of people who clicked, liked, shared, saved, commented, reacted, and more to your post. 

Engagement rate should be your primary social media KPIs for tracking and monitoring the success of your social media content, ads, and marketing campaigns. A high engagement rate signifies that your audience is engaged and interested in having a relationship with you. 

It also signals to the algorithms (on all platforms) that the content is valuable and that users enjoyed seeing it. Therefore, the higher the engagement rate, the higher the chance of the post being pushed to more users by the algorithm.

To get your engagement rate, calculate the number of engagements your post gets divided by your number of followers. Multiply the result by 100 to answer as a percentage of your audience. If your impressions or following are higher than your engagement, then it's likely you are not reaching your target audience, your content does not appeal to them, or they are not responding to it.

AUDIENCE GROWTH RATE

We’re going to say something that might shock you….

FOLLOWERS MATTER.

That’s right. We said it….and we believe it. More followers = more potential sales. It’s simple, really - but remember; QUALITY > QUANTITY.

The audience growth rate metric is a common and popular way to measure how many new followers your social media accounts or brand gets within a certain time. It is also used to measure how popular your social media account is and how effective your social media campaigns are on any given platform.

To calculate, over a reporting period, track and add your new followers (on all your social media platforms). Divide the total number of new followers by the total amount of audience you have on each platform. Multiply by 100 to get the result of your audience growth rate in percentage.

SOCIAL SHARE OF VOICE

If you want to know if you are succeeding and outshining your competitors, your social share of voice is how you know. This metric shows how many people are talking about your brand on various social media platforms. It compares the number of times you and you and your competitors have been mentioned directly or indirectly. 

Social Share of Voice is, essentially, competitive analysis: how visible—and, therefore, relevant—is your brand in the market?

We know that everyone likes to avoid looking at their competition - you might even think you don’t HAVE competition. We understand, it’s nice to keep our blinders on and stay in our lane! However, it’s so important to check these things out once in awhile.

To calculate your social share of voice, track your mentions and those of our competitors for a certain period. Add both mentions (yours + your competitors), divide your brand mentions by the added mentions (yours + your competitors), and multiply it by 100. The result gotten is your social share of voice.

TO WRAP IT UP:

We hope you found this a bit helpful in learning more about what social media metrics to track this year! This is just a small glimpse into the world of analytics, but we do think these are the foundational numbers to keep track of with your campaigns!

For more insight and help with social media growth, catch us over on Instagram!

See you there!