2023 is coming up, and it’s time to revamp our social media marketing strategies. But before you do, take a step back and assess how you’ve performed this year. Did your campaigns go off as you expected? Was there a specific strategy that didn’t go as you wanted it to? Looking back at this year’s performance is critical to achieving your goals in the new year. Evaluate the performance of your current campaigns with Facebook metrics. These metrics will give you key insights into your Facebook marketing efforts. Tracking these metrics will allow you to adjust your strategy and improve your content on the fly.
But which metrics should you track? We’ve compiled a list of the most useful metrics to take your campaigns to the next level. Have a look!
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Why Are Facebook Metrics Important?
Metrics are an important part of marketing. Whether you’re running an ad campaign or simply posting content for yourself, you need to track the results of your effort. And metrics are the best way to assess your efforts. Facebook metrics can help tell you which of your posts are performing the best. Or when should you post for maximum reach? Knowing little details like these enables you to evaluate your efforts and adjust strategies accordingly. Facebook metrics also allow you to monitor how the changes you’ve made are performing. Have these changes been effective at all? Or do you need to revert back to your original strategy? These metrics will have a crucial role in your decision-making process.
Here are some of the most useful Facebook Metrics you need to track!
Top Facebook Metrics to Track
Reach
Reach is the count of unique users that see your post or ad. It’s important to take note of the word unique here. Reach only counts people that haven’t seen the post or ad before. Viewing it twice will only be counted as once. Reach on Facebook is split into two categories; Organic and Paid. Organic reach is the number of unique users from your follower list that viewed your post. Paid reach is the number of unique users from outside of your followers who saw your posts. Paid views mostly come from Facebook Ads or promoted posts.
You can check your reach through the Page Insights section of your Facebook business page. The native Facebook analytics app only provides the reach metric. Other social media analytics tools can give a more detailed look into it, such as a breakdown of your reach by type of post or audience demographic.
Impressions
Impression is the number of times a post shows up in a user’s timeline. It’s a little different from reach since repetitions are counted as well here. Every time a Facebook user sees your content, the metric will go up by one. Impressions are usually higher than reach but can be the same as well. But they’re never lower than reach.
Impressions are also divided into Paid and Organic categories. It’s an important metric to track because it tells you if people find your content interesting. A higher impression means that people saw it multiple times and it was promoted well. Or that they circled back to find the post again. Which is even better.
You can find impressions in Page Insights. All you have to do is switch Reach to Impressions under the Posts tab.
Engagement
Engagement might just be the most important one when considering page- and post-specific metrics. It is a more holistic term that covers every interaction a Facebook user has with your page. This would include likes, comments, reactions, link clicks and shares. But engagement isn’t just limited to these interactions.
The engagement metric highlights how a particular post appeals to your followers. The more it resonates with them, the more likely they will interact with it. And, thus, higher your engagement levels. Facebook algorithms are designed to increase the visibility of posts that have engagement rates. This means more people on Facebook will see your posts. This also leads to an increase in reach.
Engagement can be divided into subcategories. These are usually engagement rates by followers or by post. These are calculated by dividing the sum of interactions on a post by the total number of followers or posts on your page.
Page Likes
Page Likes has been one of the oldest Facebook metrics. It’s the total number of likes or followers you have on your page. It’s a very straightforward metric that doesn’t require any complex calculations and is simply an indicator of your follower count. Yet, it holds immense importance in Facebook analytics.
Page Likes highlights the demand for your count. People who follow your page want to see your content again. This means you’re creating content that appeals to your niche audience and your strategies are successful. But if you don’t see your page likes growing, your content isn’t working, and you need to adjust accordingly.
A great strategy to analyze page likes is to compare it with impressions. If Facebook users are regularly viewing your content but not hitting that Like button, it may mean the intent of your content doesn’t match the viewer’s interests.
Referral Traffic
This metric counts the number of people who were referred to your website from your Facebook page. The goal of all marketing is achieving sales. And most sales will happen on your website. So it’s important to redirect traffic from Facebook to your website.
Tracking this metric can be very handy if you have links to your website or product links on your Facebook page. It will tell you the overall effectiveness of your Facebook page. If you post links in a post, it will indicate the effectiveness of that specific post. You can also use this metric to track your ads’ performance. Since Facebook ads also redirect viewers toward your website, Referral Traffic is a good metric to assess their effectiveness.
To improve this metric, you must post fresh content consistently. Add product links in the caption of your images. Your CTAs need to be compelling and visible enough. Sending links to your followers on Facebook Messenger is also a great way to increase Referral Traffic.
Follower Demographics
An important part of social media marketing is understanding who your audience is and where they come from. Follower demographics gives you this exact information. It divides your followers into several categories. Where do they live? How much money do they earn/ What are their ages? Other types it includes are; device, gender, language and education.
Knowing these tidbits of information can help design a better strategy. You wouldn’t want to target women with content that is engineered for men. Follower demographics shapes your tone of voice, post content and marketing message according to the demographic category you’re trying to target.
The more your content is catered to a specific audience, the better it will perform and the higher your engagement metrics and chances of conversion.
Click-Through Rate
The Click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on your posts. It’s a direct metric measuring how many people click on your content. Click-through rate is mostly used for tracking ads instead of posts. This is because you want people to take action when they view your ad. A simple social media post may aim to educate followers, but an ad is only effective when someone clicks on it.
The Click-through rate is calculated by dividing the total number of clicks by the total impressions and multiplying by 100. This is the percentage of people who clicked on an ad from all who saw it.
Cost per Conversion (CPC)
This is more of a monetary metric and an important one at that. Cost per conversion is the cost of getting a click on an ad. This is the money you pay an advertiser to get clicks on your ads. CPC can be the cost to promote an ad enough to get a click or a complete conversion.
Since brands and companies invest a considerable amount of money in advertising and social media marketing, it is essential to track this metric. CPC indicates how much it costs to get a conversion from their advertising efforts. If you have a high CPC but need more conversions, you need to change your strategy and be more insistent with your content. It’s always desirable to have a low cost per conversion. The lower this metric is, the more profitable your advertising efforts are.
Cost per Mille (CPM)
Also called the Cost per Thousand Impressions, CPM is the total cost incurred to get one thousand impressions on a Facebook post. It’s the amount of money you pay every time a thousand people see your content. This is used for sponsored content, i.e., posts and ads promoted by Facebook.
It’s an important metric that falls under brand awareness. With this metric, you can track the cost-effectiveness of your ad campaigns. Brands use CPM to compare their budgets and expenses across all the social media channels they’ve invested in. Additionally, it will also help you assess how facebook prices are changing. Since Facebook operates on an auction system, prices can fluctuate a lot. If your CPM is rising, it could mean that your ad placement is getting competitive.
Best Time to Post
A lot of brands and marketers skip this metric. And their campaigns suffer without them even realizing why. You might not believe it, but every social media platform has its own best time to post. This can vary by platform, region and even target demographics. Which is the metric best time to post is crucial. It has the potential to ultimately make or break your campaigns.
As a marketer, you need to know the best time to post on Facebook. Posting at this time will ensure that your target’s eyes are on your posts and they don’t miss them. Friday mornings and afternoons are great times to post on Facebook. In contrast, content posted on Saturdays gets the least engagement on Facebook. Before you post, think about whether your audience will be checking their phones at this time. Or will they be too busy to open social media? The metric best time to post can answer these questions for you.
Tracking Your Facebook Metrics?
There are a lot of things that go into curating a successful social media marketing strategy. On platforms like Facebook, you have to consider your audience, your content and how to deliver it. But who tells you if you’ve done an excellent job? Just looking at your sales numbers isn’t good enough. You have to look at Facebook metrics that will tell you precisely what you’re doing right. Or wrong. Track these Facebook metrics to adjust and improve your Facebook marketing strategy in real time.Â
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