How to Measure Social Media Engagement

Updated by Chima Mmeje — November 21, 2024.

Social Media Marketing and SEO are a closely connected, often intertwined parts of any business’s digital marketing strategy.

Tracking social media engagement using social media analytics tools is essential for creating a cohesive digital brand strategy. It’s vital that brands cultivate a positive online presence and build a following of active and engaged followers.

If you’re wondering how to measure social media engagement and use it to support and improve your SEO strategy, then you’re in the right place.

Social media engagement refers to the ways in which customers interact with your brand through social media content, including post comments, likes, and shares.

Many consumers use social media to learn about products and brands. Below are just a few statistics to mention when talking to stakeholders about the importance of establishing a social media strategy and tracking its efficacy. Hootsuite published the following statistics in January 2023:

• 50% of Instagram users say that they’ve visited a brand’s website after viewing their Stories
• 66% of Facebook users visit a local business page at least once a week
• 68% of users watched YouTube to help them make a purchase decision
• 80% of weekly users have discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest

Evaluating social media performance is crucial to understand how these interactions contribute to overall business goals.

Later on in this article we’ll outline some key terms and metrics associated with tracking social media engagement, but there are a few we should tackle now to help set you up for success.

Engagement - Engagement refers to any interaction an audience has with your social media content. This includes things such as likes, shares, comments, and saves.

Impressions - Impressions measure how many times your content is shown to users through their feed.

Engagement rate - Engagement rate is typically expressed as a percentage and indicates how many people engaged with your content after seeing it in their feed. It is calculated by taking engagement divided by impressions. For example, if a post receives 500 engagements (likes, comments, shares, etc) and was seen 10,000 times, the engagement rate would be 5%.

Reach - Reach is similar to measuring impressions, but instead of counting how many times your content has been seen, it measures how many individual users actually see your content.

It’s no secret that having a loyal following on social media helps boost your brand. But social signals don’t directly affect your SERP rankings, so what’s the point?

Firstly, social media efforts, including posts and profiles, can show up in search engine results pages (SERPs), and they can be used as a tool to improve your SEO practices.
 

With 3.96 billion people using social media worldwide and 55% of consumers heading to social media platforms to look for feedback on businesses, maintaining an online presence is critically important when it comes to the customer journey. Businesses with an active social media presence not only instill trust in potential buyers by showing customers that they are active but also benefit other aspects of their marketing strategy, such as:

• Reputation management
• New customer acquisition
• User Generated Content
• Customer retention
• Brand awareness
• Event and sale promotion
• Customer and community engagement
• Customer service

All these factors together can make potential buyers more comfortable with purchasing from or engaging with a business. Ultimately, it can help to develop a holistic, complete view of a business before the customer engages with them (or sometimes after, as well, in the case of customer retention). Plus, using social media for content promotion (i.e. sharing links to your content or encouraging audience engagement) can support your SEO efforts by helping to get your content noticed. This can lead to possible link acquisition and website traffic. Getting your content out there and expanding its reach is a great alternative to having it just sitting on your website waiting for organic visitors.

Here are some tips to make the most of your social media marketing efforts and improve engagement across your posts:

1. Post quality content, consistently. Social media is a fickle friend. One day you’re trending, and the next, you’re not. Be sure to make quality, relevant posts regularly to maintain your audience’s interest.
2. Use pictures and videos to tell your story. If we consider that reels make up more than half of content reshared through Instagram DMs and 87% of Twitter users also use Instagram, it stands to reason that visually-oriented social media content should be an important part of any social media strategy. Rich content like images and videos are more likely to attract followers and get them to pause scrolling and engage with your post.
3. Define and use a consistent brand voice. 80% of people choose to follow brands on social media based on whether or not their content comes off as authentic. Think about your company’s brand and customer base when defining your brand voice. When posting on social media, be consistent with the use of brand voice as this is how people may gauge your authenticity.
4. Listen. Don’t just post whatever you want. Springboarding off of our previous point, be sure to listen to what your audience is looking for and offer them meaningful content that is consistent with your brand.
5. Track. Various tools help determine who sees your posts and how people respond to your content. Monitor and track your social media engagement and how well your posts perform.
6. Track customer service metrics. Monitoring metrics like total response volume and reply time can help improve your responsiveness and overall customer experience.

There are several metrics that brands should measure to track their social media engagement and the effectiveness of their marketing strategy. It is impossible to know how well your campaigns are performing, who is looking at your posts, and how well they are responding without accurate tracking. However, keep in mind that there isn’t one particular data set that is the end all be all for measuring success. It’s best to track and consider a multitude of metrics to get a better overall understanding of your performance. Using social media analytics tools can help you gather and analyze these metrics more effectively.

With that in mind, here are 11 important metrics to measure:

Impressions

Getting to know a brand takes time, so many users will need multiple impressions to build brand awareness. Impressions measure how many times your content is shown to users through their feed. Impressions should include how many times your content is shown to both followers and people who don't follow your accounts.

Reach

Getting your content in front of the right audience is crucial for social media engagement. Reach is similar to measuring impressions, but instead of counting how many times your content has been seen, it measures how many individual users actually see your content.

Audience growth rate

A part of building an online presence is increasing your number of followers. But instead of just measuring how many followers you have, measuring your audience growth rate (month-to-month) can show you if your content is attractive to new customers.

Individual engagement metrics

The first few metrics measure brand awareness, but followers officially become a part of your sales pipeline when they start engaging with your content. It may be useful for you to track individual engagement metrics such as likes, comments, shares, retweets, tags, and mentions to set your brand benchmarks and evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns. However, in many cases it may be more effective to track total engagement.

Total engagement

Total engagement refers to the total number of interactions a post receives. This can often be more helpful to track than individual engagement metrics as it can help to provide a better understanding of the success of a post.

Engagement rate (by total followers)

Now that you have measured engagement metrics, you can use engagement rate (by total followers) to track how active your followers are when they interact with your social media content. Simply divide your number of engagements by your reach to get this metric. The higher your engagement rate, the better. Higher engagement rates indicate that your followers are finding what they are looking for with your content.

Engagement rate (by impressions)

Social media is an ever changing landscape with algorithms that are constantly evolving. In today's social media world, every follower isn't shown every post. And with the popularity of For You Pages (FYP), explore pages, and more there are plenty of people who are not direct followers who may be seeing your content. Engagement rate (by impressions) takes this into account by considering how many TOTAL views your content receives rather than just how many of your followers see it and engage.

Click-through rate (CTR)

The CTR is the percentage of viewers who click on a link in your content after seeing it. To find it, divide the number of clicks by impressions. A high CTR means that your audience is interested in what your brand is offering on social media.

Referrals

A referral indicates how a user ended up on your landing page or website. Referrals will show you which social media channels are the most engaging and which can use more work.

Social conversions

When someone makes a purchase from your website via a link from social media, you have a social conversion. This number shows you exactly how many of your followers buy what you have to offer. You can track this via UTM codes in your URLs or through social media management software.

One benefit to tracking engagement is that social media interactions tell you a lot about the content your audience prefers. For example, if certain types of posts aren’t getting many likes, they may not be right for your audience. On the other hand, if a different type of post receives numerous likes and is shared countless times, the people seeing that content are really enjoying it. Keep in mind, though, that it’s best not to make sweeping changes to your social media strategy based on the performance of only a few posts. Social media and its algorithms are always changing so rather than making decisions based on a small data set, it’s better to use this information to spot trends and better understand your audience over time. These trends can then help to better inform future iterations of your posting plans. You can also tell if your brand is gaining traction by tracking the number of followers on your account.

Using social media analytics tools can help you track these interactions more effectively and gain deeper insights into your audience's preferences.

Each social media platform has native analytics that you can use to track the metrics that we covered in the previous section. You can also use Google Analytics to dive even deeper into your social media engagement tracking. Plus, there are numerous apps and digital tools that make it easy to stay on top of social media engagement trends and campaigns. If your company has the budget, using a social media management software can help with not only scheduling and planning your social posts, but also gathering consistent metrics for tracking engagement.

Measuring social media engagement can be a daunting task, especially with the numerous metrics to monitor on different platforms. Here are some common challenges and solutions to help you overcome them:

Challenge 1: Data overload

With the vast amount of data available from various social media platforms, it can be overwhelming to determine which metrics are most important for your business.

Solution: Focus on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that align with your business goals. Use social media analytics tools to filter and prioritize data, ensuring you're tracking the most relevant engagement metrics that offer valuable insights into your social media performance.

Challenge 2: Inconsistent metrics across platforms

Different social media platforms have varying metrics and definitions, making it difficult to compare engagement data consistently.

Solution: Standardize your metrics by creating a unified social engagement report that translates platform-specific data into a common format. This approach helps in making data-driven decisions and provides a comprehensive understanding of your social media efforts.

Challenge 3: Attribution of social media impact

Determining the direct impact of social media engagement on business outcomes, such as conversions or sales, can be challenging.

Solution: Use UTM parameters and track social conversions through social media management software to attribute social media activities to specific outcomes. This will help you measure the conversion rate and understand the social media channels contributing most to your business goals.

Challenge 4: Changing algorithms

Social media platforms frequently update their algorithms, affecting the visibility and engagement of your content.

Solution: Stay informed about algorithm changes and adjust your social media strategy accordingly. Focus on creating high-quality, engaging content that resonates with your audience to maintain and improve your engagement metrics despite algorithm shifts.

Challenge 5: Lack of engagement

Despite efforts, some brands may struggle with low engagement rates on their social media posts.

Solution: Re-evaluate your content strategy by analyzing audience preferences and feedback. Experiment with different types of content, such as videos, polls, or user-generated content, to see what resonates best with your audience. Additionally, engage directly with your audience by responding to comments and messages to foster a sense of community.

By addressing these challenges with strategic solutions, you can effectively measure and enhance your social media engagement, leading to improved social media success and overall business outcomes.

Ready to supercharge your social media plan and up your engagement metrics? Here’s how:

Improving your social media performance can lead to higher engagement and better business outcomes.

Know (and interact with) your audience

To build an active social media following, you have to be social. Actively engage with your audiences by responding to comments and messages promptly, and post consistent content that is on-brand based on your established guidelines. Use a content calendar to stay organized and focused on your social media campaigns. (Need help getting started here? Checkout our Content Strategy Template and Content Planning Guide.)

It's also important to provide relevant content that your audience can benefit from. Put yourself in the shoes of your audience. What do they want to see from your brand? Take the time to think about who you're trying to reach, what they want, what their problems are, and how you can help them. Once you have a better understanding of who you're talking to and what they need to get out of the conversation, you can start to learn and plan the kind of content that best suits their needs.

Use the right visuals

Images and videos are more than just a nice addition. Audiences have come to expect rich content from the brands that they follow. Have you ever heard the saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words?” Well, it's true.

Facebook posts with pictures get over two times more engagement, and 84% of audiences say they were convinced to buy a product by watching a brand video.

Collect feedback

Looking for another way to engage your followers? Ask them questions and get feedback about your posts, products, and brand.

There are many ways to get feedback through social media channels. You could start a poll about a trending topic just for fun, ask your customers what they like best about your brand, and what you can do to provide better experiences in the future.

To take it a step further, ask them to leave a review on your social media page so that you and your followers can learn from their experiences.

Lean into user-generated content

User-generated content is content about your brand that is created and shared on social media by your followers. Fans and followers like to be noticed by the companies they love, so give your customers the spotlight by featuring their positive content about your brand. You can do that by hosting giveaways that require user-generated content (like a photo with your product tagging your brand) and using hashtags to boost your content.

Be clear about what you want

All social media content that your brand posts should focus on how your product gives customers what they want. But, since you're out there trying to make a living and increase your cash flow, ensure your followers know what you want them to do when they engage with your content with a call to action.

Use specific words that clearly indicate your customers' next steps. For example, words like “download,” “follow,” “share,” and “comment” all tell your audiences how you want them to interact with your content.

It doesn’t matter what tools you use, as long as they work for your team and provide you with the information to improve social media campaigns and engage your followers. Impressions, Reach, Audience Growth Rate, Engagement Rate, and CTR are among the most important metrics for you to measure and keep track of. But ultimately, all of the metrics above can be used to measure your campaigns’ effectiveness and boost website traffic. And remember! Metrics aren't gospel, but part of a holistic understanding of your brand on social media with your content, environment, and audience.

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