Simply posting content isn’t enough for small businesses to thrive in the constantly changing world of social media. To truly see if your efforts are working and to make smart decisions, you need to dig into your social media analytics. These aren’t just abstract numbers; they are the key indicators of your online performance, offering insights that can directly affect your bottom line.
Many digital marketing companies offer social media management, but not all provide comprehensive analytics that clearly show value. At MYOB, we believe in transparency and empowering our clients with the data they need to see their social media investment at work. But what exactly are these analytics, and what do they mean for your small business?
Let’s break down some of the core metrics you’ll encounter across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and others:
Impressions vs. Reach: Understanding Your Visibility
Two terms often used interchangeably, but with distinct meanings, are impressions and reach.
Impressions: This metric tells you the total number of times your content was displayed on users’ screens. Think of it like how many times your flyer was seen in different mailboxes. A single person might see your post multiple times, contributing to a higher impression count. High impressions show your content is being viewed more often, which is a good sign for brand visibility.
Reach: This refers to the total number of unique users who saw your content at least once. Using the flyer analogy, reach is the number of different houses that received your flyer. Reach gives you a sense of your audience size and how far your message is spreading to new individuals.
While high impressions are great for reinforcing your brand, reach is vital for expanding your audience. Both metrics, when viewed together, provide a clearer picture of your content’s visibility.
Engagement: The Heart of Social Interaction
Beyond simply being seen, how are people interacting with your content? This is where engagement metrics come in. Engagement encompasses likes, comments, shares, clicks, reactions, and saves.
Engagement Rate: This is a metric that measures the percentage of your audience that interacts with your content. It’s often calculated by dividing the total engagements by your reach (or sometimes impressions, depending on the platform and specific metric). A higher engagement rate shows that your content is connecting with your audience and motivating them to take action.
Understanding which types of content drive the most engagement is invaluable. For instance, carousel posts on Instagram tend to have higher engagement rates compared to single-image posts, averaging around 0.69%, according to recent data. On LinkedIn, the average engagement rate can be significantly higher, around 6.50%, reflecting the platform’s professional networking focus. Analyzing engagement helps you identify the best formats, topics, and calls to action, which allows you to tailor your content strategy for maximum impact.
Follower Count: More Than Just a Number
While a large follower count might seem like the ultimate goal, its importance is often misunderstood. A high number of followers can contribute to wider reach, but it’s the quality and engagement of those followers that truly matter.
Should you pay for followers? The answer is absolutely not. Buying followers typically provides you with fake accounts or bots that will not engage with your content, become customers, or contribute to your business goals. Social media platforms actively work to find and remove fake accounts, which can lead to a sudden drop in your follower count and damage your credibility with real users. It’s far more beneficial to have a smaller but highly engaged audience than a large, unengaged one.
Identifying Top and Least Popular Posts
One of the most practical benefits of social media analytics is the ability to see which specific posts performed best and which didn’t. Metrics like reach, impressions, and engagement for individual posts highlight what resonates most with your target demographic. This data allows you to refine your content strategy, create more of what works, and learn from what doesn’t. This analysis can highlight issues such as poor posting times, content themes that fall flat, or ineffective visual elements.
The Paid Advertising Dimension
Social media platforms offer powerful paid advertising options, allowing you to target specific demographics and achieve goals like website visits, leads, or sales. Analytics for paid campaigns provides detailed insights into ad performance, including cost per click (CPC), click-through rate (CTR), and conversion rate. This data is essential for optimizing your ad spend and maximizing return on investment.
However, it’s also important to understand what happens when you stop paying for ads. Unlike organic reach, which can have a longer-term impact, visibility from paid advertising often drops significantly once the budget is depleted. This highlights the importance of a balanced strategy that combines both paid efforts for immediate impact and organic efforts for sustainable, long-term growth built on genuine audience connection.
Demonstrating Growth Through Analytics
For small businesses, proving that social media contributes to growth and real results is vital. Analytics provide the tangible data to do this. By tracking metrics aligned with your business objectives—whether it’s website traffic, leads generated, or direct sales attributed to social media—you can demonstrate how your social media activities are contributing to your business’s success.
Over to You
We provide our clients with monthly analytics reports that translates numbers into clear, actionable insights, illustrating the progress and impact of our social media management efforts. This transparency is a key differentiator, showing you exactly how your social media is working for you.
Understanding and using social media analytics is no longer optional for small businesses; it’s a necessity for strategic growth. Are you leveraging the power of analytics to truly understand your social media performance? Let us help you go beyond simply posting to help you better understand your brand’s social media performance through analytics. Contact us for more details!