However, some social media marketers may be focusing too much on only one priority. It may be good to monitor social media data and content, such as the number of followers, retweets, shares, and likes. Still, other metrics may be important in social media platforms. When you miss these social media marketing metrics, you may be missing some marketing opportunities, which could drive your brand into decline.

For instance, in the case of social shares, they may provide very little information about your customer and product following because:

• Bots automatically do many social shares, and social shares may not come from your targeted niche market.
• Social shares may be done by people who speak negatively of your brand, such as your competition.

Undeniably, retweets, likes, and shares can provide interesting information for marketing purposes, but other metrics can provide even better pointers on the impact of social media efforts.

Brand searching outside social media

According to research, customers exposed to a brand or product on social media are 180 percent more likely to search for those on search engines. Therefore, it is important to go back to basic search engine marketing to monitor how many are searching using their products or brand as keywords. Marketers can also use Google Insights or Google Trends for more effective monitoring.

Other lead growth

Social followers and social mentions do not provide a complete picture of customer brand awareness. Suppose you have tools or apps that can monitor how often certain customers open a marketing e-mail from you. How many web page visits and how many social interactions before a prospect become a customer will show marketers how important marketing efforts are outside social media. You can utilize this data to spread out marketing efforts where they can be most effective.

Brand sentiment

Many social media tools are available online, some of them free, that can help you measure the sentiment of the conversations surrounding your brand online. However, even more important in monitoring talk about your brand is having a plan and being able to respond if you find that your brand’s image isn’t as positive as you would hope it would be. To prepare for this possibility, you need to create documents and possible responses to negative brand mentions. It would be best to clarify to everyone and your social marketing team what your official company response will be and what types of compensation you’re willing to offer unhappy customers.

Social Media Marketing Metrics Can Monitor All Sharing

If you have non-article content posted on your social media platforms, such as videos or slideshows, monitor where these contents are shared. Interacting with the people the content is shared with may convert them into customers.