What is social media marketing? Social media marketing refers to the process of creating tailored content to best reach your target audience. When used correctly, social media marketing can drive engagement, promote your business, create brand awareness, and encourage conversions.
What is a key performance indicator? Also referred to as a KPI, a key performance indicator tells you if your chosen social media marketing methods are working… or not. Let us highlight the three most important KPIs for social media marketing.
1. Key Performance Indicator: Reach
Reach refers to how many people see your post in their newsfeed. Organic posts have a difficult time reaching the maximum amount of people. If you use social media marketing tactics such as ads or boosted posts, your post will be pushed in front of – and ultimately reach – your target audience.
Reaching your target audience will depend on the metrics you use in your ads and boosted posts. You don’t want to be too broad that your post falls on uninterested parties. But, you also don’t want to be too specific that the post has difficulty reaching interested parties. (We do this every day and are more than happy to manage this for you!)
2. Key Performance Indicator: Engagement
Reach is important, but not more important than engagement. If you reach 1,000 people but only 5 people engaged with your post, your engagement rate for that specific post is .5%. However, if another post reaches 50 people and 25 people engaged with your post, your engagement rate for that specific post is 50%. Engagement can take many forms, such as:
- Comments
- Mentions
- Profile visits
- Reactions
- Shares
When you have a healthy engagement rate, that is a key performance indicator that you are creating quality and relatable information for your target audience. (Did you know? Social media experts say that an engagement rate of 1% – 5% is great. That doesn’t sound or feel like a big number, but in the digital world where every business and person is fighting for the user’s attention, 1% – 5% might as well be a jackpot.)
3. Key Performance Indicator: Leads & Conversions
If your targeted audience is inquiring about your services or making purchases through social media, that is a great key performance indicator that your content is spot on, and your social media marketing is working. More than converting customers from on-the-fence to loyal, you should also analyze where your leads and conversions are coming from. If your Instagram page is responsible for 20% of your leads whereas Facebook is responsible to the other 80%, this could mean one of two things:
- Your target audience is on Facebook, and that’s where you should spend your time and money.
- You are not adequately reaching your target audience on Instagram, and you should put more effort into that social media platform.
It can be difficult to determine which is accurate for your social media marketing. We can help.
How M&R Marketing Can Help
Social media marketing, key performance indicators, conversions, leads… does creating and tracking this information overwhelm you? We understand you have important work to do, so let us take this off your plate. Give us a call to discuss what it would look like to partner with M&R Marketing for your social media advertising and management needs. We can’t wait to hear from you: 478-621-4491.
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