Guide to Social Media Metrics

⌚ 5 min read

Pop quiz! What’s the return on investment (ROI) on your social media efforts?

If you’re drawing a blank or struggling to define a percentage, you are not alone. For the majority of businesses, quantifying the value of the time and resources invested into social is challenging.

That just might have something to do with the fact that social media is omnipresent throughout the customer’s buying journey. In other words, it’s hard to tie it to one finite metric when customers use social for discovery, research, advocacy, reviews, customer service, updates, etc.

Trying to link social back to just plain old revenue won’t work. It doesn’t give you the entire picture nor is it easy to do.

 

The Fix: Lifecycle Metrics

Since social media is present across all stages of the customer buying journey, it makes sense to break it into distinct segments that allow for better content creation and targeting which leads to defined and measurable metrics.

The four stages can be defined as:

 

• Attract - Offer engaging content that is shareable, interesting, and valuable to your target audience

 

 

• Convert - Further develop a relationship by offering deluxe content only available on brand owned channels (i.e. website)

 

 

• Close - Produce hyper-targeted content that clearly and distinctly presents your value proposition to the prospect

 

 

• Delight - Continue relationship building with customers through loyalty-inspiring strategies 

 

 

Case Study

Stephanie runs a flower shop with a business partner. Among other things, she is responsible for their marketing efforts, primarily social media. 

The biggest issue she has been facing is measuring the effectiveness of the time and effort she has put into creating content. “How can I trace back revenue to our social media?” is a constant question on her mind. 

As Stephanie breaks down the various stages of the sales funnel and how they align with the social content strategies she’s been using, she realizes that 75% of the content she produces can’t be directly tied back to revenue. Rather, they are supplementary elements that lead to an eventual close and nurture customer relationships after sales take place. 

She breaks down the process into the following stages: attracting, converting, closing, and delighting. Each stage has certain metrics that align with the goals of its respective social media content. The only stage where Stephanie measures revenue is the closing stage, where she can directly link dollars spent on ads to the revenue generated from the paid content. 

By identifying metrics based on the customer’s lifecycle, Stephanie can accurately gage if her efforts are accomplishing her goals and leading the customer further along the funnel, which eventually leads to the ever-important revenue metric. 

Navigating the 4 Stages

Attract

The goal is to attract an audience and inspire engagement and trust in your brand as an expert in the field.

• Create helpful content that isn’t selling your service or product. People use social media for entertainment and information, so think about what you can offer that fits into those categories and will resonate with your target audience. Establish yourself as the go-to source for information in your field - whether it’s the newest beauty trends or finance tips.
  
  
• Also make sure to produce content that is understandable and entertaining to those who aren’t familiar with your brand. When your fans share your content to their social circles, you’ll have exposure to a whole new potential pool of customers, so your content must be universal enough yet not stray from your branding too much.

Use the following metrics to determine the efficacy of your efforts at this stage: engagement, impressions, reach, clicks, shares, and follower growth. 

 

Convert

Once you attract an audience, it’s time to focus on converting them to leads by offering premium content they can access after filling out a form (valuable info!) on your website. At this stage, your followers become leads after seeing how your product/service can help them.

• Create content that provides solutions to problems your audience is facing or helpful advice that will simplify everyday tasks for them. There are a multitude of formats to offer this content in: ebooks, webinars, free courses, giveaways, free consultations, live streams, etc.

Use the following metrics to determine the efficacy of your efforts at this stage: landing page conversion rate from social media and email list growth.

 

Close

After identifying leads from social media, convert them to customers by using targeted ads and strategic promotions. At this point your prospects have made it through the convert stage, so you now have ways other than social to contact them (i.e. email).

• During the close stage, using ads is highly advised, so money spent and money earned becomes the important metric.
  
  
• Create ads that feature customer testimonials to help close the deal with those ready to pull the trigger. 
  
  
• Ads should feature transparent pricing and clear benefits to the customer that will solve their problem. This helps narrow down those who click through to your landing page to those who are highly interested. 

Use the following metrics to determine the efficacy of your efforts at this stage: conversions directly on social, product pages, and trial sign-ups.

 

Delight

Delighting a customer means solving their problems, offering support, and inspiring and helping them to achieve something they wouldn’t otherwise without your product/service. It also means continuing to create beneficial social content for them after their purchase, because retaining a customer is seven times more cost-effective than attracting a new one. 

• Take the time to respond to customers’ comments on social - good or bad! And offer solutions to any issues they are having, because these public sounding boards reflect back directly on your brand.
  
  
• Keep content fresh and customers coming back by offering tips on creative ways to use your product or related lifestyle insights, i.e. recipes, travel tips, party organization ideas, etc. 

Use the following metrics to determine the efficacy of your efforts at this stage: retention rate and repeat purchases.

Prospective, current, and return customers are all part of your social audience. By carefully creating thoughtful content and tracking metrics along the way, you can polish your social funnel into an ROI generating machine.