A Few Facebook and Instagram Metrics Your Brand Should Be Tracking
These days, social media is a popularity contest. The more likes, hearts and fans a brand has, the more respected they are in the social sphere. However, at the end of the day, hearts and fans don’t ALWAYS keep the money wheel turning. So, what other metrics should you be measuring on Facebook and Instagram? While this can vary based on a brand and its goals, we’re here to give you the lowdown on a few you should be tuning into.
REACH – The more people a brand is able to reach can lead to more awareness, engagement and actions. However, with more than 1 billion Facebook users, it’s important that brands are reaching the right people. By doing a deep dive into a brand, you can figure out who your listeners are and where to find them to maximize your reach.
Another reason reach is important is that it helps evaluate the success of a post. Not every post is created equal, and your fans will agree. By looking at which pieces of content reach more people, you can understand what your audience likes and why certain posts outperform others.
ENGAGEMENT – Look no further than engagement to let you in on whether your content is a fan favorite. Engagement can be summarized as any like, comment or share. Of course there’s other ways to engage, but these three are key. The more engagement on a post, the more likely Facebook will surface it to your followers. Engagement is a great indicator of the type of content your brand should be creating.
CPA – Remember in accounting class when your teacher preached “Cash Is King”? If you didn’t listen then, listen up now! A good way to know if your ads are paying off is to look at your cost per acquisition. The main goal of any business is to make money, and the lower the CPA, the more money in your piggy bank. This metric also helps you understand the overall ROI of your campaign – or in other words, how much you’re getting back for your investment.
FOLLOWER GROWTH RATE – While the number of Instagram followers isn’t a dealbreaker, follower growth rate can be indicative of your success. Maybe one month you had a spike in growth. What can you trace it back to? Perhaps it has to do with your posting frequency, the amount of interactions on your posts, a promotion or quality of content. Follower growth rate can help you dive deeper into what makes your audience tick – and once you find that spark, follower growth can be explosive.
ENGAGEMENT – Similar to Facebook, engagement tells you whether your content is drawing people in. The more hearts, comments and shares, the more positively your brand is being perceived. To track if your engagement is increasing over time, we recommend looking at engagement per post and engagement as percentage of total followers.
For engagement per post, tally up all the engagement for about six posts and divide by six to get the average engagement per post. You can then look at the previous six posts and see whether you improved or missed the mark. This is a good way to evaluate your content and how it’s performing over time.
When it comes to engagement as percentage of followers, the equation is as follows:
(Total Engagements) / (Number of Followers) = Engagement Rate
Measure this month over month to see if follower growth and engagement rate is increasing over time. Positive numbers mean positive results!
TOP HASHTAGS – If you’re a social pro, then you’re probably a hashtag fanatic, too. A hashtag is a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound and used to identify messages on a specific topic. For Instagram, it’s important to use hashtags appropriate to your brand as well as hashtags that lead to engagement and fan growth. Brands can see which hashtags have the most impact on their posts and encourage the most engagements over time. So, make sure you’re staying on your #hashtaggame and checking hashtag stats.
We hope you learned a little about some metrics you should be checking twice. Just remember, key Facebook and Instagram metrics can vary across brand and objective. So make sure you’re looking at your brands goals before picking the top stats.
