Social networking platforms can provide a wealth of data about your potential customers. 

You might have started your campaign on multiple social media platforms. But only some social media marketing programs work consistently. So tracking social media analytics is critical to achieving success. 

Almost every minor detail can be tracked using the right analytics tools. Set your social media metrics, use tools for data analytics, and measure success.

This is a brief guide on how you can accurately track your social media analytics.

How to Track Social Media Analytics In 12 Steps 

Set S.M.A.R.T. Goals

It is good to apply smart marketing tactics. But what does S.M.A.R.T. mean when you set your goal?

• S stands for specific
• M for measurable
• A for attainable
• R for Relevant
• T for Time-bound

It is a goal-setting framework that enables you to achieve success. 

From consumers’ interaction styles to their conversations, nothing is static. But, with a goal, you can measure your campaign’s performance. 

You can take steps to attain different goals based on the SMART framework.

Develop Brand Awareness

To spread brand awareness, you must create and post new engaging content weekly. 

Make sure that you can measure the increase in the number of social networking followers. Regularly share content on social media. Set a timeframe within which you intend to generate interest in your brand.

Understand Customers

Often, startups set this goal to run their campaigns more efficiently. They use analytics tools to interpret customer data and identify key trends. Usually, it takes around a month to gather information about customer preferences and customize content accordingly.

Drive More Traffic

Some SMM professionals try to drive more web traffic by increasing referrals from social networking sites. It is realistic to set a goal of increasing traffic by at least 10% to 15% within six months.

Publish targeted content to see a significant boost in website traffic from social websites.

More Brand Mentions

Increasing the number of brand mentions is another common goal of social media marketers. You may need to run your PR campaign while managing social media activities. Track the brand mentions created by your marketing initiatives. 

Generate Leads

With high-quality content, you can draw leads from different social networking sites. The most successful content encourages social media users to share contact details.

You can generate 15 to 20 new leads every week. This goal is attainable in 4 to 5 weeks. If you have more leads, you will have more business opportunities. 

Boost User Engagement

Only compelling content can help you engage more social media users. Higher user engagement can be measured by the number of brand mentions and hashtags. Set the number of months within which you can set your goal.

Improved Customer Service

Social media platforms give you a chance to improve your customer service standards. Relevant and timely responses to customer questions will help you win trust. Some social media marketers aim to reduce customer waiting times. 

They should measure how much customer loyalty they have gained through a social media campaign.

Decide Which Metrics Matter To You Most

The next step is to align your goals with metrics that are measurable with tools.

For instance, if you intend to measure engagement, you must choose which type of engagement to track. 

Is it the number of comments? Reposts? Or clicks? There are a few tricks to choosing metrics for a social media marketing program.

• To gauge awareness, metrics like reach, volume, amplification, and exposure are relevant.
• Metrics like replies, comments, and retweets are essential to determine engagement.
• You have to track conversions, URL shares and clicks to drive website traffic.
• To trace fans and advocates, you should track the number of contributors.
• To measure brand mentions, you need to know whether your brand name is mentioned in customers’ conversations about the relevant industry.

The types of metrics may be slightly different depending on your chosen social platform.

• The number of new users tweeting with related hashtags
• Demographic information, including the location and gender of the target audience
• The daily tweet volume

10. Check In Regularly

Regular monitoring of SMM campaign performance lets you understand the upcoming demands. As a result, you can map your marketing strategy and take proper measures. 

You can review your analytics to identify your major competitors and evaluate your actions thoroughly. This approach will help you avoid the mistakes made by your competitors. 

You can improve in particular areas to beat your competitors. A daily review of your social media activities is helpful in several other ways.

• Measure the results of your communications– As you communicate through social media, you may use analytics to determine the effectiveness of daily conversations.

It is essential to keep a close eye on how much attention has been given to your actions. You’ll be able to learn about your business’s reach among the target audience. You can use the best monitoring tool to gather data and analyze it to generate an automated report.

• Improve your content ideas– You can learn about industry trends by reviewing social media platforms regularly. It will help you find innovative and fresh ideas for content. Your competitors’ social media posts can become your source of inspiration.
• Manage brand reputation efficiently- What are your customers saying about your brand? You cannot know it without keeping an eye on social platforms. Based on the SMM report, you can respond to customers quickly. Let customers feel that you always care for them.
• Finding influencers on social media- This is another reason to analyze social media campaigns regularly. Influencers are vital in reaching your brand’s name to the targeted audience. You can identify influencers in your industry and establish a connection with them. These professionals also help you increase conversion rates by winning consumers’ trust.

11. Pay Attention To Spikes And Drops

The number of impressions is an invaluable metric for evaluating social media marketing activities. It refers to how many social media users have noticed your posts and updates. 

Most popular social networking sites have analytics to show the impressions your updates receive. For instance, if you are running a Twitter marketing campaign, you’ll have to click on the Tweets tab to find Twitter Analytics.

Measure the increase or decrease in the number of impressions on certain days. But, this impression metric has a different name on other networks. So, if it is a Facebook marketing campaign, you have to check the number of people reached.

Again, in the case of Pinterest marketing, you can check Pinterest analytics by reviewing the number of repins.

However, impressions and followers only have value if you get little engagement. Thus, there should be higher engagement if you find an increase in these metrics. 

When you receive more likes, retweets, comments, and repins, it indicates your followers’ interest in your content. 

You can replicate the technique that has provided the most desirable results. If the network enables you to publish different types of content, you need to identify the one that drives the most engagement.

12. Use The Right Tools

Use the right social media analytics tools to capture performance-based and campaign-focused metrics. 

You can then measure your metrics with these tools. Some social networking platforms also provide you with analytics. You can use advanced third-party tools for this. 

These tools implement different analysis methods like

• Data mining
• Traffic evaluation
• Hidden pattern analysis
• Data preprocessing
• Natural Language Processing

Reliable analytics tools help you analyse all types of social media analytics and run a social media campaign efficiently. As a social media marketer, you can track and measure the performance of different aspects of the campaign.

It is also easy to calculate the number of purchases and positive turnovers directly from social platforms like Facebook.

Some tools mine data from social media platforms for sentiment analysis and brand recognition. They identify customers’ behaviors toward a product or brand. 

But you can go ahead and personalize the analysis process depending on what you need. The most significant advantage of using the tool is that all your social media analytics data will be on a single platform.

10 Metrics To Track in Your Social Analytics Tool 

Data is always at the forefront, whether it is SMM or other digital marketing campaigns. But, the most challenging thing is identifying what information is important to you. 

To overcome this channel, you need to set up your social media metrics. Every metric is relevant to your SMM goal. 

Before learning about these metrics, you can create an Excel spreadsheet for data tracking. It will help you share your analytical data with your team. 

Add columns, graphs, and charts to the sheet for metrics. You can build a strong foundation for your campaign by determining metrics. In addition, you can easily track data using analytical tools.

Social Media Content Metrics

Once your content has been shared on social media, it is time to evaluate its performance. SMM experts know that more than 70% of social posts are visual (images and videos).

50/50 is the golden rule for content developers. You’ll need to learn how to break down the original content you posted by you, your competitors, and industry experts. 

You can also analyze the reshared posts created by influencers. Besides, it is essential to focus on other types of content, including guest posts, reviews, and infographics. 

By sharing compelling content, you can draw the attention of several influencers and create positive sentiments among potential customers. 

Work on your spreadsheet and track the social media content across all platforms. Pay attention to

• Video and image posts
• Original content 
• Text-based content

Access your social media accounts to collect data and see the type of content you have posted. However, there are tools to generate data automatically. 

Social Media Listening

Social listening is a technique to help you identify people’s comments and conversations about your brand. The most important thing is to understand customer sentiment by analyzing conversions that may be positive, negative, or neutral.

Conversation monitoring and analysis enable you to determine the best way to respond to your target audience. Analytics tools make it easy to address your customers’ pain points and give a response at the right time. 

So, what are the most important things if you choose social media listening as a metric? From brand mentions to neutral sentiments, everything should be tracked.

Social Media Audience

How do you know that your content is engaging your target audience? 

For instance, the age range of your target customers is 40 to 50 years, and they should be from New York City. But your Instagram account has attracted several young users from around the world. It leads to an audience alignment problem. 

It means that you have not been successful at attracting the right people with social media content.

Sometimes, bots cause an issue. They only temporarily increase your engagement and do nothing beneficial for you. If social media platforms find that you use bots for engagement, they will penalize you.

This is why you set audience metrics and track relevant data so that you engage only real followers (not bots). The most critical data that you should track include:

• Gender-related percentage
• The newly acquired followers
• Total number of followers
• Accounts you have followed
• Location and age group of the target audience

Choose the best tools for social media audience analysis.

For example, some marketers use Google Analytics because the social media audience needs to match website visitors to ensure a high chance of a conversion. But you’ll need to understand your audience and learn about their behaviors to engage them.

Metrics On Social Media Posting Time

Which is the best time to post content on social media platforms? When does your audience engage most with social media content? Have you been able to maintain consistency in your social media posting activities?

Tracking these metrics will help you figure out the perfect time to publish content. You may also detect gaps that you must fill. In most cases, marketers like to post content on relevant and trendy topics.

While tracking time-related data, you need to focus on

• The days that have engaged the highest number of social media users
• Seasonal and timely posts
• The number of posts in a week
• The best time to engage the audience

Do your research to determine the most effective times and days for social media posting. It is different for every industry. 

Competitor’s Performance Metrics

Both small and big organizations use social media for promotional purposes. Are they performing better than you? Do they have weaknesses? It is imperative to look at your competitors’ activities while running SMM campaigns. 

However, you don’t need to rely solely on your findings. Your competitors may have tried their best to achieve your social media campaign goals. 

It does not mean that their tactics will be effective for your business. Still, you can rely on the information obtained through meticulous research. It will help you find fresh ideas and better strategies.

To track your competitors on social platforms, you have to determine the strengths and weaknesses of your strongest competitors. It is also possible to find new business opportunities. 

Keep an eye on your competitors’ social media accounts to understand how they compete. Check their regular posts and ads just as other users do. Understand the type of content they share regularly. 

Social Media Traffic

Have you received traffic from social media platforms? Do social visitors increase the bounce rate? 

If these visitors leave your website shortly and return to the social site, it raises the bounce rate. It happens when your website content and digital messages do not align with each other. With a slight adjustment, you can solve the problem.

You can persuade your social media users to take the right action. Their actions will affect your site, form submissions, and product pages. 

Advanced tools help you track social media users activities after clicking on your link and visiting your site. You will learn whether the user has navigated to other pages and submitted the online form. Besides, you also learn social media analytics trendmand tweak your strategies accordingly.

You need to calculate page views, bounce rate, average session duration, traffic source (mobile and desktop), and standard social media links for traffic data monitoring. Pick the right tools to track data on social media traffic.

Social Media Engagement

Engagement is one of the most important metrics to evaluate social media marketing performance. Some businesses do not have the goal of attracting more likes. Still, social media engagement metrics provide them with a clear picture.

To have explicit knowledge about engagement level, you need to count the

• Total number of engagements based on likes, retweets, shares, comments, and link clicks
• Increase or reduction in the engagement rate
• Number of messages you have received from social users

Some social media platforms have integrated tools to provide insightful data. But you may also do a manual calculation of the data.

Social Media Branding

Branding metrics are highly significant in measuring the alignment of your online posts and your brand. 

Have you chosen consistent captions for spreading the brand voice? Do your social media posts show your brand name? Images shared on social platforms should also use the same filters. 

Tracking your branding information is part of a social media marketing campaign. So, ensure you have not violated branding guidelines while posting on social platforms. You’ll need to update your posts regularly.

Evaluate your social media branding activities to ensure proper alignment of your posts and branding guidelines. 

For example, you may have posted social media content with your abbreviated brand name. But, in the next month’s post, it shows the full name of your brand. Figure out this inconsistency in your social media branding campaign. Maintaining a consistent rhythm with social media content is highly important.

SMM Campaign Management

Keep track of how you manage your social media campaign. The most significant thing to identify is the social media campaign manager. Besides, you should track-

• The size of your social media marketing team.
• The efficiency of the person who created the report
• Frequency of reporting
• The right team size, depending on the number of goals to be achieved
• Potential PR problems and the way they are managed
• Average Response Time

However, you don’t need to use tools to know these details. The information you have gathered will enable you to understand social media management styles. You can also determine whether you can attain your goals successfully.

Metrics On Social Media Goals

It is the most crucial metric that you must include in your report. Do you know if the data you have collected match your social media goals? It has to cover every social platform, including Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and LinkedIn.  

For instance, you have a goal to increase engagement on Instagram. But you need to achieve at least 100 engagements on every Instagram post. After setting this goal, you can check the relevant data to know what you have achieved. 

What issues should be covered in your metrics? You must focus on the conversion rate, the total number of social media posts, social media reach, and economic gains or losses.

There should be primary as well as secondary goals for your social media campaign. 

Make sure you are ready to set more goals for your SMM campaign. If any of them have yet to be achieved, you should identify what you have learned from your marketing initiatives.

A single platform may not serve every objective. For instance, if your images are not performing well, you can reduce your marketing activities on that platform. Or you can focus on video-based content.

Conclusion

Tracking social media analytics is essential for measuring the success of your social media marketing campaign. Follow these 12 steps: set SMART goals, develop brand awareness, understand customers, drive more traffic, increase brand mentions, generate leads, boost user engagement, improve customer service, decide on relevant metrics, check in regularly, pay attention to spikes and drops, and use the right tools. By tracking metrics such as engagement, reach, traffic, and branding, you can gain insights, optimize your strategy, and make data-driven decisions to improve your social media marketing efforts.