Social is inherently misunderstood. It’s been talked up over the years as the key thing for media campaigns, and it still, for many, sits in that ‘the kids get it, but I don’t’ seat on the marketing bench. It is often aligned more with the communication (blogging/PR) team, which might even sit outside the marketing reporting line and with less capability to understand and report on metrics…. “They’ve got a head for english not math, darling!”
So, here are a few things to think about when you are looking at integrating your social KPI’s.
Social media is a great tool for layering your communication, engaging with customers and keeping front of mind.
Engagement is key due to the algorithm make up of Facebook, which will define who of your followers will see your post, based on their engagement and reaction. Engagement has now got particularly low, meaning that boosting posts (paid ads) is critical.
Facebook becomes more like another advertising medium and its metrics need to align. True performance needs to compare ‘apple with apples’ with other paid media i.e. what is the average cost per click (CPC) each month? What is the conversion of that click? Too often we may give top-line results that show likes and shares but what about the wider picture of both organic and promotions (boosting) and how could this be applied to help build understanding? A few areas may include:
Using data to learn what posts work, then immediately moving to advertise those that don’t gain sufficient reach, or those that do, as clearly, they resonated.
Consider how the cost-per-click (CPC) and click-through-rate (CTR) compare to your other medium. Put more against the posts that are within the benchmarks.
Define the total investment i.e. consideration of the management, curation and creation.
The starting place is setting up your UTM codes within the posts that you make, so that you can understand source/medium/campaign. This could look like Facebook/blog/summer sale. This could allow comparison to Instagram/boostedpost/summer sale or a digital campaign programmatic/Remarketing/summer sale, as other paid areas with the same messaging.
This can start to build a stronger picture within Google Analytics about what is generating traffic and what messaging works. It can also showcase a truer picture of return-on-investment (ROI) data to your website, for example, lead generation, referral traffic and conversions.
In my experience, social media is great to build reach and engagement, but it doesn’t convert easily. But this doesn’t always mean that it shouldn’t be included in media activity. It might mean that we learn how it sits to build awareness, grow loyalty and become a known and trusted brand, so that when the time does come, you are front of mind.
The important part, is to start to measure in-line with your other marketing activity, so that you can understand or invest in the right areas - be that content, a message which resonates or how it fits into the more holistic marketing activation.
Key tip - you want to know more about UTM codes
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