New to Social Media? KPIs You Should Focus On

One of the biggest challenges for any business that’s just getting its start with social media is: how do you know if you’re “doing it right”?  Without some background knowledge of the space, defining and achieving ROI can be very frustrating and very difficult.

The most important thing to remember when establishing a presence on social media is that you need a goal. Without a goal, your “return” is nothing more than an ambiguous sentiment about how your social programs are going.  Let’s take a look at a few different, high-level goals your business may have, and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) that you should use to measure the success of your campaigns.

Generating Leads If lead generation is your main goal, your activity should be focused on getting people to complete a CTA (Call-to-Action).  This could be as simple as filling out a contact form, downloading a white paper, or picking up the phone and calling your office directly.  You are going to want to look for percentage of visitors who complete the CTA and how they got to your site.  Did they come through Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc? Collecting this data can give you a better idea of how to tweak your lead generation strategy channel to channel.

Promoting a New Product or Service For a product launch, or to introduce a new service, your team should create a dedicated landing page.  This page should provide an overview of said product or service, with links to further information, dedicated content etc.  For these sorts of campaigns, you will want to look at the time spent on the page, and if they click through your site to learn more.  Is your offering piquing their interest, or are they quickly pressing the back button?  Conducting an A/B test where two different landing pages, from different online sources, have varied content, design, etc. can be a great way to see what facets of your offering resonate most with site visitors.

Getting Your Brand Name In Front of as Many Faces as Possible When it comes to pure exposure, you are going to want to look at reach, exposure, and impressions.  How many people are seeing your message? How many are sharing it with their followers? What sort of content is garnering the most engagement? As you gather these numbers, you can revise your general content strategy, tailoring it for specific social networks or influencers you hope to reach.

What KPIs, if any, does your business focus on with your social efforts? Do you ever feel like your social efforts deviate from your defined goals? Any and all examples of how you’ve met your KPI are appreciated!