It is no secret that social media is a powerful tool for brands to connect their customers, spread awareness and share real time updates. However, not utilizing the data and analytics behind your posts can cause a loss of connection or damage your social interaction. Social media analytics helps you keep tabs on the progress of your marketing strategy as well as the welfare of your clients and competitors. Obtaining and using analytics from your social media accounts and social media management platforms will help you increase your brand awareness as well as help you be more successful on social media in the long run. Let’s focus on a few key metrics you can use to start thinking more strategically when creating your social content.
Understanding the people who are following and seeing your posts is critical. This allows you to create content that will appeal to your audience. For example, if you’re trying to appeal to millennials you will want to consider using user-generated-content or focus on an experience that you offer. Defining your audience plays an important rule on the content you should be generating, so knowing or not knowing who that is has a large impact on your strategy. Understanding your audience has the ability to take your social media presence to the next level and can provide your company with great results.
When you are looking at reach you are really looking at the potential amount of individual views your post could acquire. This metric can be used to comprehend your brand awareness. You are really able to see the impact that your message could have. If your posts have a high reach number that means your audience finds your content interesting and are most likely engaging with it.
According to Sprout Social, engagement is how much your audience is interacting with your account and how often (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-metrics/). This is important to look at because it tells you if your audience is interested in the content you are posting. Key things to look for when looking at your engagement levels are; likes, shares, and comments. If your posts are receiving high engagement levels you should keep sharing and posting the same types of content; if you notice your engagement levels are low on most posts you should look at your more successful posts and analyze what is different. Looking at all levels of engagement is crucial for a well-rounded strategy instead of focusing solely on one level of engagement.
Social media management platforms and accounts provide you with a wide array of analytics to use when creating content. You don’t have to use all of the metrics given to you to create content. You also should not exclusively rely on the metrics as they are there simply as a guide to assist you and provide useful information. If you are aware and understand how the metrics can be used, you are on your way to creating engaging content.