It’s the end of the year and businesses of every side are taking stock of how their marketing efforts have fared over the past twelve months. One of the perks of living in the age of Big Data is the nearly endless ways we can organize, analyze, and take action on the numbers. If conversion rates and PPCs are too overwhelming, there are a few key metrics worth focusing on with your social media. We take a look at what these metrics are and when you should care about them based on your unique goals.
We’re going to focus on Facebook, and with good reason. There are now over 60 million active business pages around the world, so there’s a fair chance that if you’re reading this as a business owner or marketing head, one of the other tabs you have open in your browser has a blue and white icon on it. And it’s a great place to have a presence, capable of reaching the right users out of over two billion people. These key metrics help make sense of what you’re doing and who is actually seeing your posts and ads.
Post Reach. This is the king of what we often call the ‘quantity metrics’. In a sense, it’s the measure of sheer, unadulterated volume. Facebook offers this as the total count of users that saw any particular post on your page. The bigger the number, the more eyes have graced that specific post. It’s a good thing if you’re looking to increase brand awareness, reach new potential customers, or recruit new partnerships or sponsorships. The most dangerous misconception we get with this number is that it makes money. Even if 50,000 people see the post, it only does so much good; there’s more value once they start interacting with the content…
Post Engagement. And that’s what this is. If Reach is about quantity, then Engagement is the benchmark measure of quality. Engagement is a count of likes, shares, comments, reactions, or clicks on a particular post. In a sense, it’s a sign that whatever you’ve posted has gotten a user to stop scrolling and do something; for many pages, that action is focused on getting the user in a position to spend money by clicking through to your site. However, Engagement is also a great indicator of the quality of your content. The higher the Engagement, the more informative, entertaining, or visually striking. It also boosts your Reach considerable through Facebook’s algorithm, which is structured to push posts that get a lot of traction.
Actions on Page. This is another quality indicator that, like Engagement, helps to measure how many Facebook users you’ve converted. Every business page can create a Call to Action button that is essentially the spot where you’ve turn scrollers into customers. It can be anything from ‘Buy Now’ for business, ‘Book Now’ for a wine tour, or ‘Donate Now’ for a non-profit. Actions mean money, and the bulk of your efforts through posts should be to put people in a position to do something, and when it comes to the Action button, it doesn’t get any more clear cut.
Page Views. Most brands will try to find a ratio of Page Views and Action button clicks. Page Views are just that; a count of how many people viewed your page. This is an underrated metric when you stop and consider your own browsing happens. The next time you’re on Facebook, try to think of how many business pages you actually land on, no simply whose post you see in your Newsfeed. Depending on your habits and interests, you may not find yourself on pages too often. Every industry and brand is different, but we recommend keeping track of your ration of Page Views and Action clicks as a way to measure how many people get from Facebook to your Page to making a purchase. The lower the ratio, the better the conversion, and as it lowers, you’ll learn what content moves customers through the process.
Online sales come from any number of avenues, including paid campaigns on other social media sites. For many, many businesses, however, Facebook provides the best tools and the largest pool of users to reach through both organic and paid efforts. You already invest in your Facebook page, even if that’s just your time. By keeping a close eye on metrics and adjusting your content accordingly, you can grow your digital presence into an extremely valuable sales tool.