Page 20 - AeM_Feb_2019

BEST PRACTICES & STRATEGIES

Selected social media KPIs for

performance measurement

Some social media key performance indicators (KPIs) undoubtedly important but unfortunately can’t
only relate to individual social media platforms while answer the question of wastage. Certainly, it is
others have overall significance. Therefore, as with more important for B2C than B2B companies.
almost any social media target, the question arises how
marketers can measure success - or failure.  Engagement: The engagement measures how
strong the interaction on the social media channels
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a central media is, how many comments have triggered your own
equivalence value, as is the case with classic media posts, how often the posts have been shared, how
monitoring. Instead, hundreds of different KPIs circulate often social media conversations have been
through the network and through the communications conducted, how fast or slowly the responses to
departments of companies or their agencies. The reason requests have been and many other (sub)factors.
for this lies in the very diverse objectives of the individual
companies, in the further development of existing KPIs,  Influence: It measures the impact that the
in the multitude of social media platforms, ingenuity, and company generates through social media is much
even a bit in the pomposity of some social media gurus. more difficult than "just" engagement and reach;
after all, this measure includes qualitative content.
As said, some social media KPIs can only be applied to If opinion makers have been reached, the
individual social media platforms, such as Twitter or questions are: what influence do the social media
Facebook, some others can cover all platforms together. activities have on the image and what changes are
In addition, there are also individual tools, like the "Klout made to customer relations?
Score", a free service in which the online influence is
reflected on a scale from 1 to 100. But, although it  Virality: Did social media create content that went
seems to be a nice tool to compare with others, it is in "viral"? Many companies hope that their content
general a bit too superficial and simplistic to deduce will spread on the internet by itself – which explains
viable analyzes from it. To get an overview of KPIs, the why they often opt for funny commercials.
following list of social media performance metrics can be However, this is easier said than done, because in
useful for your next social media activity: addition to good content, companies need enough
contacts (fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter,
 Reach: The old question of how many people you etc.) to get the (snow)ball rolling. The virality is
have reached - broken down according to the usually measured by views / shares minus one's
respective social media platforms and ideally also own contacts.
as per demographics. A measure that is
20 February 2019 - Strategic Social Media, Influencer Marketing & Paid Media