Regular monitoring is an essential part of social media! This is the only way to evaluate the strategy and whether measures are successful. Key performance indicators (KPIs) should therefore be clearly defined in the strategy right from the start.
Are high follower numbers particularly important? Or would you prefer a high engagement rate? We list the most common KPIs and their importance:
Follower
Of course, it looks good when a social media account has over 10,000 followers. But how many of these followers are real profiles? And how many of these followers correspond to the target group? You should always keep this in mind when evaluating the number of followers.
More important than the pure number of followers is therefore the development of followers. If the number is growing continuously, this is a good sign.
Example of KPI followers:
You sell a product exclusively in Germany, but 30% of your Instagram followers live in the USA. Then this 30% is nice-to-have, but less effective.
Engagement rate
The engagement rate can be calculated using a simple formula:
(number of engagements ÷ number of fans and followers) x 100
It indicates how users interact with the content, i.e. share, like, comment, etc. The higher the engagement rate, the better. This is because it indicates that users like the content and find it appealing.
What engagement rate is good also depends on the channel and the area. For example, the engagement rate is generally higher for companies that sell cosmetics than for mechanical engineering companies.
Example of engagement rate formula:
You have achieved 50 engagements in one month and have 1,000 followers. This results in an engagement rate of 5%.
Impressions
The number of impressions indicates how often a post was displayed in the newsfeed. Users can logically see a piece of content more than once. This is also the reason why the number of impressions is often much higher than the reach. Viral posts in particular are frequently shared by many users and can therefore appear multiple times in the social newsfeed.
Range
In contrast to impressions, reach indicates how many actual users have seen the post. So if a user has seen a post five times, it only counts as one in terms of reach.
Click-Through-Rate (CTR)
The click-through rate is important for social ads. There is also a formula for this:
Clicks ÷ total reach x 100
It tells you how many of the users reached clicked on the ad and were then redirected to the desired landing page.
The higher the CTR, the better, as the ads appeal to users. The average value is variable again. In the tourism industry, higher CTRs are the average, while CTRs of 0.3% are considered a success in the financial sector.
Example of CTR formula:
Let's take the 1,000 users reached again. Of these, 5 clicked on the ad. This results in a CTR of 0.5%.
Cost-per-click (CPC)
Alike the CTR, there is also the cost-per-click (CPC). This indicates how much a click on the sponsored ad costs. In this case, the lower the better.
The CPC can be calculated as follows:
Advertising costs ÷ clicks
Benchmarks here are again channel and industry-dependent. However, if the CPC is very high, the motif/text or the target group must be adjusted.
Example of CPC formula:
So if I spent €100 on an ad and received 15 clicks, the CPC = €6.66.
Video Views
If you post or publish videos on social media, it is also worth taking a look at the video views. This is because it indicates how many users have viewed a video. However, there are differences between the individual platforms as to when a video view is counted!
Frequency
This key figure indicates how often a user has seen a social ad on average. Here, too, it is important to find a healthy balance! More than once is good, because that way you can remind people of yourself and your brand several times. However, caution is advised above a frequency of around 5. Because then you run the risk of annoying users with your content.
Cost per lead (CPL)
If you have achieved a whitepaper download, a webinar registration or a product purchase via a social ad, you can determine and evaluate the costs for this one lead. This is calculated simply by dividing the media budget spent by the number of leads.
Example for CPL formula:
You have invested €1,000 in a campaign and gained two leads from it, then one lead cost you €500.
Conclusion
It's all in the mix! Evaluating the success of a social media campaign based on one KPI is not the right approach. Instead, you should use several metrics for evaluation. It is also important to define at least similar KPIs for all campaigns. This is the only way you can compare the different campaigns in a meaningful way.
