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First of all, let’s explain what marketing metrics are. Marketing metrics are the statistics that marketers use in order to monitor, record, and measure the progress of their marketing methods over time. These marketing metrics are varied and can change from platform to platform therefore marketers really need to focus on the goals that they want to achieve and choose the metrics that will track their success and failures. However, although there are many marketing metric methods that can track your progress, at the end of the day, you need to focus on what really matters for each platform or campaign and that is oftentimes not your metric stats.
Social media ‘likes’ are not that important
This may come as a shock to you but how many likes you get on an Instagram post or Facebook post or Twitter post is not all that important. Two of the most important social media marketing metrics are post reach and post impression however these are the two that are sometimes the most difficult to track. Post reach refers to the number of individual users that were exposed to a piece of content that you posted whereas post impression refers to how many times your target audience has seen your content or post appear on their screens.
As we have already mentioned, post reach and post impressions are the important metrics that can actually track how well your social media marketing campaigns and posts are doing however they can be difficult to track. This is why many marketers tend to track social media likes and use these metrics as a way of determining how engaged consumers are being with their posts. However, many people scroll through their social media accounts without ever liking any posts but that does not mean they did not see anything. That does not mean certain posts did not leave an impression and most importantly that does not mean your post was ineffective.
The moral of the story is: While a post may not have many likes sales can still go up because of the awareness that has been generated’. However, many may ask ‘but my sales aren’t going up, and if they do how can I know it’s because of my social media marketing. This leads us to our next point.
You are tracking your results too early
According to CMO of Finverity, Radek Vanis, marketing managers are giving in to the temptation of calculating their marketing metrics too early or locking in their measurement in short intervals rather than being patient and giving posts and campaigns more time. Statistics from recent research show that 77% of marketers measure their return on investment within the first month of their campaign or their post on social media. These marketers are way too eager to prove their return on investment in a short amount of time that it may end up sabotaging their goals. Of this 77% of marketers, 55% admitted that they had a sales cycle of 3 months or more which proves our point that when you are too keen to prove your return on investment you are not getting the correct figures and such impatience will result in your social media campaigns seeming desolate. Within the research study, only 4% of marketers measured their return on investment over a six-month period or longer.
If we asked these marketers whether it not it is useful that they calculate their return on investment for a social media campaign before a full sales cycle, the clear answer would be no. However often times eagerness to prove campaigns are working can become detrimental to the success of your company’s marketing tactics.
Don’t forget why you’re doing what you’re doing
Many companies understand that marketing their product or service is important and that marketing metrics help you gather information about your progress and analyze what is having a positive impact and what is having a negative impact. However, many of these companies will become too consumed by the need to track anything and everything that they forget what the purpose of gathering and analyzing such information was in the first place. This creates the illusion that you are doing something important and useful for your company but unless you put that information into use, it becomes rather useless for lack of a better word.
The main job for marketers is to explain why a company should pursue a certain strategy to market its products. After implementing such strategies, it is then the marketer’s job to utilize the correct marketing metrics to ensure that the strategy is indeed driving results. However, haste in trying to prove results will not work as we have discussed above. Remember to be patient and let your strategy work its magic first before you decide whether it’s useful or not.
Creating conversation is key
We’ve already established that the number of ‘likes’ you receive on a certain post is not all that important but what are some other methods of seeing whether or not your posts are generating awareness? This is where creating conversation comes into play. If your posts are being shared, commented on or re-tweeted, that’s a good indication that people are talking about your brand. You should always aim to reply to every comment within a reasonable amount of time (1-3 hours) as many social media platforms display your response time to messages and if it is too long it can actually discourage potential customers from messaging you. Replying to messages on posts will also create more conversation and activity around your posts, therefore, increasing your chance of being exposed to a bigger audience which will, in turn, increase the awareness raised around your brand.
The key to this article is to make sure you don’t let metrics undermine your business. In other words, although performance metrics can help form strategy it should not dictate how your marketing strategies are carried out. Instead, marketing metrics should only serve as an extension of your strategies, not in place of them.
Marketing is a never-ending process and requires consistent and continuous dedication for every business. Digital marketing is becoming more and more prominent in our technology-driven world and although it is seemingly easy to rely on social media marketing metrics to determine your return on investment, marketers must ensure that they are not purely relying on such metrics as they may be counter-intuitive. In addition, it is imperative for marketers to understand that patience is everything with marketing and you cannot expect to prove your return on investment before your sales cycle has completed. If your business needs advice regarding your marketing strategy or a consultation, get in contact with our marketing team today.
