Social Media KPIs: How To Track And Improve

Dec 15, 2023 14 min read

Scrolling through my social media feeds, I found myself lost in a plethora of posts, ads, and endless content. As a small creator, I invested a lot of time and resources in social media marketing, hoping for the best. But truth be told, I was unsure if my efforts were truly making an impact until I became aware of tracking Social Media KPIs for best evaluation.

Understanding and tracking these KPIs became a game changer for me. It transformed the approach of my social media strategy and made me realize that you might have the same concern, too. This blog is precisely the solution to our similar problems and lets you know everything on specific channel-wise Social Media KPIs that you need to track.

What Are Social Media KPIs?

Simply put, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are measurable metrics used to assess the effectiveness and success of social media strategies and activities, helping in quantifying various aspects of a brand's presence and interactions on various social media platforms, be it Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram or YouTube. Businesses leverage these KPIs as benchmarks to evaluate performance, gauge the outcome of their goals, and analyze whether they need to make strategic changes.

For instance, take a look at this Instagram Insight Dashboard that shows the various important social media metrics that should count as your trackable KPIs. These metrics highlight how, what, and whether your activities are achieving the targets or not.

instagram dashboard

Thus, businesses keen on hitting their social media goals should be more inclined towards setting SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely) KPIs to gain a few steps closer to achieving an astonishing bottom line.

SMART-Goal-Setting

Source: ClicData

Reasons To Track And Improve Social Media KPIs?

With social media being the top channel for marketing and growing your business, it's essential for businesses to understand the importance of tracking Social Media KPIs and rethink their strategy if they haven't yet.

So, here are 4 reasons for you to track and improve your Social Media KPIs for best results:

1. Performance Evaluation

KPIs help to measure the progress towards the social media goals you have set. They are measurable benchmarks, providing insights into whether your social media efforts are aligning with your desired outcome. With this evaluation, businesses will be able to identify areas of strength and weakness in their social media presence and understand what works and what needs refining.

2. Data-Driven Decisions

Tracking KPIs offers highlights of specific successes and patterns along with data-backed insights into audience behavior, audience preferences, behavior patterns, content performance, and campaign success for strategic decisions. This data also aids in improving content targeting strategies and resource allocation to better resonate with their audience.

3. Optimizing ROI

Tracking and improving Social Media KPIs enables businesses to assess the return on investment (ROI) from various social media activities. It helps identify the biggest traffic sources to your website and determine which activities generate the most engagement and where to allocate resources to increase conversions for maximum impact.

4. Benchmark Against Competitors

Most importantly, Social Media KPIs allow businesses to set realistic goals and compare their performance against competitors. With Statusbrew, businesses can keep themselves updated and compare competition insights with just a few clicks.

With our competitor reporting feature, businesses can:

  • Monitor their engagement, reach, and audience growth.
  • Identify gaps and benchmark performance against direct competitors.
  • Monitor industry trends.

Here are some simple steps to track your competitors with Statusbrew:

Step 1: To compare your competitor’s performance and monitor its engagement metrics across all their socials, select the data sources you want to add.

Step 2: Customize the widgets from the Widget Library to monitor whatever metric you feel is necessary, and create your custom report.

This image gives you a clear insight into our competitor reporting template, tracking each metric about your competitors from the data sources you have to select.

Competitor-reporting-template

You can successfully track very specific Social media KPIs for each channel and compare your results to the average performance stats of your competitor.

For instance, after collaborating with Statusbrew, Creator Mill, a content creation agency, fast-tracked its approval workflow with competitor reporting and metric tracking. They gained valuable insights into competitor strategies, focused on the data that matters most to them, and improved their social media performance.

How To Create A Social Media Reporting Template?

Regardless of the type of industry, most businesses struggle with the time-consuming and error-prone process of creating social media reports from scratch. This manual task involves juggling multiple data sources, creating complex spreadsheets, and spending countless hours formatting and presenting the data. With Statusbrew, everything is automated. You save a lot of time by presenting data through our visually appealing and easy-to-understand social media reporting templates.

reporting templates

We have templates from businesses with different requirements. For instance, if your concern is managing multiple locations, then we have a GMB reporting template that lets you track KPIs relevant to your requirements. You can then share with your clients, employees, or stakeholders through PDF, CSV, or live sharing.

Stop creating your social media reports manually already! Statusbrew has all the major templates for all needs and requirements. Sign up for a FREE 14-day trial and generate social media reports with the click of a button!

Important Social Media KPIs To Track In 2024?

Before narrowing down the Social Media KPIs that you specifically need to monitor for your business progress, it is essential to get to know all their functionalities and ways to track them to decide which one you require the most. This is why we will break it down to social channel-wise (Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, LinkedIn) so you know which are the ones you should be tracking for each channel.

Meta Bussiness Suite KPIs (Facebook and Instagram)

1. Impressions

impressions

Impressions are simply the total number of times your content piece was displayed in someone’s feed or timeline who might or might not have noticed or read it. Thus, since it counts multiple views by the same user, the more your content appears in feeds, the higher your impression count will be. However, if you want to understand how many times your content is likely to appear in different places, apply the formula:

impressions-formula-equation

How To Track: Social media platforms often provide impression data within their analytics tools. Use platform-specific insights or Statusbrew to monitor impression metrics.

2. Followers

statusbrew followers

It is the total number of followers a social media account has and can include both individuals and brands. Your follower count can vary from time to time as you keep growing and become more targeted. Here’s the formula to calculate the same:

followers-growth-rate

How To Track: Platforms usually display follower counts directly on the profile. Regularly monitor these numbers for changes.

3. Audience Growth Rate

This indicates the rate at which your follower count increases or decreases over a specific period and is represented as a percentage change from one period to the previous period. If you notice slow growth, it's time you consider making adjustments to the social media calendar and overall approach. Here’s the formula to calculate it:

audience growth rate

How To Track: Calculate the percentage change in follower count over a specific time frame (e.g., monthly or quarterly).

4. Reach

reach

Source: Boostlikes.com

This is a little different from Impressions and refers to the number of unique users who have seen your content since it went live. Reach counts each user only once and changes depending on your audience's active status and the quality of your content. Here’s the formula to calculate the same:

reach formula

How To Track: Platforms provide reach metrics within their analytics tools, showcasing the number of users who have viewed your content.

5. Website Traffic

This KPI refers to the volume of visitors your social media channels direct to your website. For instance, with the help of the link in bio feature on your Instagram, you can add UTMs and easily track social traffic by directing your audience to your website through your bio link. With this, you can track key metrics like social traffic to gauge the effectiveness of your social media posts in driving visitors to your site.

How To Track: To track your website traffic, you can utilize native website analytics tools (like Google Analytics) to track referral traffic from social media platforms.

traffic aquisition

Source: Bluehillsdigital.com

6. Link Clicks

Clicks refer to the number of times users interact with a link included in your post to visit a website or external content. Tracking it helps you know how many people are engaging with the content you are putting out.

How To Track: Track clicks by using platform-specific analytics, UTM’s and URL-shortening services (like Bitly) that provide click statistics. Statusbrew’s analytics lets you know in detail the number of clicks a link receives within a post, track page clicks, and website clocks on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and X (Twitter).

Statusbrew-post-performance-report

7. Average Engagement Rate

This metric measures overall engagement by calculating the average number of likes, comments, shares, mentions, and other interactions per post by the total number of followers on your social channel. A high average engagement rate indicates that your content is doing well among your target audience, sparking their interest and initiating conversations. Here’s how you can calculate it:

average engagment rate

How To Track: While you can always track with the help of the formula given above, you can also track this KPI with the help of native tools like Google Analytics or platform analytics sections that offer an overview of the average engagement rate for your profile.

Track LinkedIn Social Media KPIs

Apart from the Impressions already mentioned above, the following are the Social Media KPIs for LinkedIn to track.

1. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

CTR is the ratio of clicks on a specific link or call-to-action to the number of times it was shown. It basically means how your content was able to persuade the target audience to take action toward your gated content, landing pages, or other important destinations. It is one of the most crucial KPIs that almost all businesses need to track for evaluating ad performance, usually organic (meaning unpaid) social performance. Here’s the formula to calculate it:

click through rate formula

How To Track: Social media platforms often provide CTR data for ads or specific links in their analytics section. However, you can also use UTM parameters to track link clicks in Google Analytics or other analytics tools like ours.

2. Page Views

When marketing on LinkedIn, Page View is an important social media KPI to consider as it tells you the ability of your Page and content to attract potential customers by tracking your page views over time. It lets you know how many followers have been intrigued to click through to your page after they’ve stumbled across your engaging content. A good page view is a good sign of increasing brand awareness.

How To Track: You can track a lot of it natively through LinkedIn Analytics, or you can consider website plugins or third-party tools as well.

3. Follower Demographics

Follower demographics refer to the collective characteristics of your social media audience. This includes information such as age, gender, location, interests, and other relevant details. Tracking this KPI lets you be more targeted in your approach, as you have a lot of information about your audience now. Besides this, you can also make sure that you are curating content directed to the right people based on job function, industry, location, seniority, and company size.

How To Track: LinkedIn provides insights into follower demographics in the insights section of your profile to view details like age, gender, and location of your followers. But for a deep dive into your audience demographics, we recommend opting for analytics tools like Statusbrew for additional data points and visualizations to help understand your audience better.

4. Top Posts

Top Posts represent the content that performs exceptionally well in terms of engagement, reach, or other predefined metrics. These are the posts that garner the most attention and interaction from your audience and let you understand which content is doing well among the professionals and what isn't.

How To Track: Again, you can navigate to the platform analytics or insights section and look for metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and impressions for each post or identify top posts based on the engagement rate using the formula given above and for more details pivot to social media management tools offering features to identify top-performing posts.

YouTube Social Media KPIs To Track

Apart from views, traffic sources, engagement rate, likes, shares, and comments already mentioned above, here are some important YouTube Social Media KPIs to track.

1. Subscribers

Subscribers represent users who have chosen to follow your YouTube channel to stay updated with your latest videos. Tracking this KPI, particularly for YouTube, is super important as it ensures that you’re growing your audience base over time. The more the subscriber count increases, the more likely it is for your future videos to perform well with more views and more new subscribers.

subcribers

How To Track: You can definitely access the YouTube Studio dashboard and navigate to the Analytics section to view data on subscriber growth, losses, and overall count. It lets you identify peaks, dips, or changes in audience interest and compare subscriber acquisition against video uploads or promotional activities.

2. Most Popular Videos

Most Popular Videos are the videos that receive the highest views or engagement on your YouTube channel. Data from tracking this YouTube KPI will help you gauge what elements from your video your audiences seem to like best, which in turn you can replicate or improvise for better results. To get the best results on your popular videos, knowing the best posting times for optimum results is ideal.

top content

How To Track: You can view this easily from YouTube Analytics, where the section displays metrics of engagement for individual videos, helping identify top-performing content. Look for patterns or similarities among these videos to understand audience preferences.

3. Views

Views represent the total number of times a video has been watched by your viewers. This is one of the most crucial metrics to track, as it lets you analyze whether your views have been growing over time or not. The more the views, the more likely is that your YouTube content is proving effective in driving conversions. But along with views, you also need to have an average watch time of 2%, for it to become successful.

VIEWS

How To Track: The view count for each video is displayed directly on the video itself and in the YouTube Studio Analytics section to track immediate engagement with new videos or live streams.

4. Unique Viewers

Unique Viewers indicate the number of individual users who have watched a video within a specified timeframe, eliminating duplicate views. It’s a useful KPI to track because it tells you how many new viewers your videos are, how they are performing, and their reach over time. Use it with other metrics to analyze how your client’s videos perform within subscriber segments. If your number of unique subscribers is strong, you are doing a consistently excellent job in serving subscribers.

unique viewers

How To Track: You can access the "Reach" tab in YouTube Channel Analytics to view data on unique viewers for your videos.

5. Audience Retention

Audience Retention measures the percentage of viewers retained over a period of time on average. It shows how engaging your content is throughout its duration. This KPI indicates how well your audience is relating to the content or topics in your channel. By tracking this KPI, you can monitor dips to understand better what changes to make and what topics to ditch.

audinece retantion

How To Track: You can navigate to the "Audience Retention" tab in YouTube Analytics, which displays a graph showing the average percentage of the video viewers watch at different time points.

6. Watch Time

Watch Time refers to the total accumulated time viewers have spent watching your videos. This KPI lets you analyze well the duration till which the viewers are watching your videos and then diverting. Monitoring lets you create more gripping, engaging content worthy of watching all the way through (or close to it). The higher the watch times, the more likely your viewers to resonate and like your content.

How To Track: The watch time metric is available in YouTube Studio Analytics and displays the total watch time for each video and cumulative watch time for your channel.

Apart from the channel-wise Social Media KPIs we have already mentioned above, here are some other revenue-based KPIs that businesses of all sizes and industries usually track. Here are 4:

1. Conversion Rate

Conversion Rate measures the percentage of users who take a desired action (e.g., make a purchase, sign up) out of the total number of visitors or clicks to a website or landing page. A good conversion rate signals that you have succeeded in convincing your customers about the credibility of your product or service that has made them act. Tracking this KPI lets you measure the impact of your social media efforts on generating leads or making sales. Here’s the formula to calculate it:

conversion rate formula

How To Track: Set up conversion goals in Google Analytics to track specific actions and further calculate the conversion rate using the formula given above.

2. Cost Per Click (CPC)

CPC represents the average cost paid for each click on an advertisement on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. CPC is also determined by a number of factors, like the day of the week, time of day, how many users you’re targeting, how relevant your ad is to your target audience, and even what industry you’re in. It determines the amount of money you have to spend whenever a prospect clicks on your ad, along with the overall paid marketing budget. Here’s the formula:

cost per click formula

How To Track: Advertising platforms like Google Ads or Facebook Ads Manager display CPC data for ad campaigns. For instance, on Facebook, most ad costs are measured in cost per click or cost per thousand impressions (CPM).

3. Revenue

Revenue refers to the total income generated from sales or conversions resulting from marketing efforts. This could be from direct sales or website clicks that convert into purchases through your social media platform. This KPI lets you track and justify the time and resources you are spending on social media marketing.

How To Track: Use e-commerce platforms, CRM systems, or revenue tracking tools to measure and attribute revenue to specific marketing campaigns or channels directly and integrate with your social media accounts.

Now, after having a good knowledge of the Social Media KPIs to track on which platforms, you might want to eliminate the possibility of manually monitoring them. While you can always use the free and easy-to-use native solutions offered by these platforms, we think you can give Statusbrew a shot, as one of the greatest shortcomings of the native solutions is that they are limited to tracking metrics for one platform and will not be able to analyze or give you an overview of multiple networks at once. But with Statusbrew, you can do all of it within a single dashboard. Let’s see how.

This video gives you actionable insights into how Statusbrew allows businesses of different sizes to identify patterns in their brand's performance, as well as give you a picture of how well your team is performing. You can track your performance analytics with each KPI for all of your social channels, get a multiple network overview, and organize the data into comprehensive analytics reports for your team or stakeholders to review further.

List of formulas to calculate your social media KPIs

Formulas-To-Calculate-Your-Social-Media-KPIs

Automate Your KPI Tracking Efforts!

As a headstart for 2024, we believe that engagement KPIs will probably be the most important metric for most businesses trying to make a mark in their respective industries. But that doesn't necessarily mean you should ignore the other social media KPIs. as there is no one-size-fits-all-KPI you should track and improve, do whatever your respective business demands.

But to automate your KPI tracking effort, snag your opportunity with Statusbrew, as you can do all your social media reporting from a single dashboard. Try it free today!

Ahana Basu

Ahana Basu, a content writer at Statusbrew, transforms ideas into captivating narratives. Besides writing, she loves exploring cuisines, powerlifting, drawing, and jamming to classical music.

Explore the Statusbrew range of social media tools

Cancel anytime!