As with any of the tips and tweaks we have offered to help increase your website attractiveness to the right visitors, the only way to know if you are getting social media growth is to check the data.
Anytime you can collect data based on your actions, you should because you’ll end up collecting vital information that will improve your business over time. One thing that you should track is the social media data that shows whether you’re getting the right type of growth and engagement from your actions or not.
What Metrics to Track
The first thing you need to figure out is what you want to track to analyze growth and engagement. These are two different metrics, so you’ll need to focus on one at a time, but you can do them together during the time you devote to tracking because growth often goes hand in hand with more engagement.
Likes and Shares ![social media growth likes]()
This is straight forward, how many people like what you post, and how many people are sharing what you have posted.
Audience Growth Rate
Knowing how many new likes you’re gaining each period is an excellent way to know if your efforts are paying off. You also want to note the ratio of following versus being followed. For example, how many people are you following that follow you back and vice versa?
Active Followers or Fans
Of all the people who have liked or followed you how many of them are active, meaning they share, comment, click-through (and so forth) the messages you post.
Audience Mentions
Using software that has this feature or by setting up a Google Alert, you can also record how many times your brand or name is mentioned. You can set this up using generic terms or specific terms or both. Do them separately so you can quantify each.
Clicks Per Post
How many clicks do you get each time you post something on average? How many clicks does it take to make a sale? This information is vital to helping you know how much you can spend on ads and other resources to bring more traffic.
Lead Generation
Out of the clicks, how many signed up for your list or purchased so that they became a prospect or a customer?
Audience Demographics
Each social media platform will give you demographic information and collecting this information will help you create more content and improve how you attract the right people.
Conversions ![social media growth conversions]()
Also, keep track of the conversions. Conversions may be sales, or it may be answering your call to action to post something or do something that you wanted them to do. If they take an action, that is a conversion, but make sure it’s the one you asked for to count it.
How to Track
The best way to track this information is by using software that does it for you. Automating everything is always going to pay off. But if you cannot afford to do that right now, you can do it manually with a spreadsheet too. Some software that you may want to try out to track social media growth and engagement include Hootsuite.com, Socialsprout.com, and of course, Google Analytics.
Avoid Analysis Paralysis
Try not to spend more time analyzing than enacting changes. It’s important to know this information, but you don’t want to focus on it more than you should. Remember the 80/20 rule. You usually get 80 percent of your results from 20 percent of your effort.
