5 Social Metrics to Ignore and the Ones You Should Follow Instead

Are you confused, about whether your social media campaigns are working or why you aren't getting more customers? I will show you what you are missing coming up next.

Social media tends to stump a lot of small businesses when it comes to marketing. Many small business owners think measuring their social media is about likes and followers but completely forget that social media marketing is about using these platforms to drive sales. In this article, I'll give you 5 popular social media metrics you should ignore and what you should be focusing on instead to grow your business.

Ignore Likes -> Focus on Engagement

Social media engagement refers to the interactions that occur between a brand and its audience on social media platforms. This includes likes, comments, shares, and direct messages. Social media engagement involves more than just likes. It includes other forms of interaction such as comments, shares, and direct messages.

Focusing on social media engagement is critical because it helps to increase brand awareness, customer loyalty, and, ultimately, sales. By interacting with your audience on social media, you can establish a more personal connection with them and increase the likelihood that they will become loyal customers. Likes do not provide the same level of interaction and do not always indicate a higher level of engagement.

Ignore Comments -> Focus on Mentions

Social media comments are written responses to posts on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Marketers read these comments to learn about consumer behavior, sentiment, and preferences. They use this data to better inform their marketing strategies, improve their products and services, and engage with their customers.

Mentions on social media can be more effective than comments on posts because they allow you to engage directly with specific individuals or brands, leading to more meaningful conversations and potential collaborations. Furthermore, mentions have a greater reach and are seen by more people, increasing the visibility of your content.

Ignore Followers -> Focus on New Customers

Social media follows refer to the action of subscribing to a particular user's account on a social media platform to receive updates from them. Social media followers can be important because they can help increase your reach and engagement, which can lead to more opportunities for your brand or business. Additionally, having a large following can help establish credibility and social proof.

Obtaining new customers using social media, on the other hand, entails developing a relationship with potential customers and converting them into paying customers, whereas simply accumulating followers may not result in conversions. Companies must prioritize social media engagement with their target audiences which leads to sales than merely building your social media following.

Ignore Impressions -> Focus on Ad Reach

Social media impressions refer to the number of times a particular piece of content has been displayed on a user's screen. This includes views on both organic and paid posts across various social media platforms. While impressions represent the total number of times a piece of content is displayed, reach represents the number of unique individuals who have seen that content.

Social media reach refers to the total number of unique users who have seen a particular post on social media. It includes both organic reach (users who see the post without any paid promotion) and paid reach (users who see the post as a result of paid advertising).

Reach is considered more important because it measures the number of people who have actually been exposed to the content, rather than just the number of times it has been displayed. In other words, reach gives a more accurate measure of how many individuals have been impacted by the content, while impressions simply measure the total number of times the content has been displayed.

Ignore Reach -> Focus on Click-Through Rate 

While reach is important, it only shows how many people saw a post and not how many responded to it. Click-through rate (CTR) is a more important metric for businesses on social media than reach because it measures the effectiveness of a post in driving users to take action.

A high CTR indicates that a post is reaching its target audience and driving traffic to a website or landing page, which can lead to conversions and sales. Overall, businesses should prioritize CTR alongside reach when evaluating the success of their social media efforts.

By focusing on driving engagement and action from their audience, they can achieve greater ROI and business impact from their social media presence.

Conclusion

Small business owners must realize that social media marketing is not just about the number of likes and followers, but about using social media to drive sales. By paying less attention to vanity metrics such as likes and followers, small businesses can better understand their audience, increase their brand awareness, and ultimately, drive more sales. It is essential to prioritize metrics that are in line with the business's overall objectives and use them to establish a robust social media plan that produces tangible business outcomes.

Funded in part through a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Small Business Administration. All opinions, conclusions, and/or recommendations expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SBA.