Social media marketing has become one of the most important and integral components of a brand’s overall marketing strategy. It offers marketers a platform to interact with their audience, generate leads, drive website traffic, and build brand loyalty. While there are numerous metrics used to gauge the effectiveness of social media campaigns, there are some critical metrics that are often overlooked or not tracked. Understanding what isn’t being tracked can provide valuable insights into areas that need improvement, enhance the targeting process, and ultimately lead to better ROI. In this article, we will explore some of the key metrics that are often not tracked in social media marketing and why they matter.
1. Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis is a metric that evaluates the emotional tone of a conversation or social media post. It is more than just counting mentions or likes; it involves understanding how people feel about your brand or campaign. While many marketers track the number of mentions, likes, shares, or comments, sentiment is often not accurately measured or tracked.
Sentiment analysis allows marketers to assess whether their content resonates positively, negatively, or neutrally with the audience. This can be a powerful metric for evaluating brand health and public perception, as it directly affects consumer decisions. Sentiment analysis can be done by using artificial intelligence (AI) tools or social listening software that tracks emotions and tones in responses to posts, tweets, or comments.
Why It’s Important:
It gives marketers insight into how their audience perceives them beyond numbers.
Helps track changes in audience opinion or reactions, especially during crises.
Provides the opportunity to adjust strategies in real-time to either capitalize on positive sentiment or mitigate negative sentiment.
Common Pitfalls:
- The sentiment could be misinterpreted due to sarcasm or context in social media language.
- Companies often overlook nuanced emotions that aren’t strictly positive or negative.
2. Influencer Impact
Influencer marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry, and brands are increasingly investing in influencers to promote their products. However, tracking the direct impact of influencer partnerships is still somewhat challenging. While metrics like engagement rates and impressions are commonly tracked, the true influence of an influencer on consumer behavior is often overlooked.
Why It’s Important:
By tracking the post-campaign impact of influencers, brands can measure conversion rates and long-term effects, not just immediate results.
Helps assess the return on investment (ROI) from influencer partnerships.
Provides insights into whether an influencer’s audience aligns with the brand’s target demographic.
Common Pitfalls:
- Focusing solely on vanity metrics like likes and comments rather than sales or leads.
- Underestimating the long-term effects of brand awareness campaigns influenced by an influencer.
3. Cross-Platform Interaction
In today’s digital world, consumers are present across various platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and others. However, many social media marketing strategies do not account for how users move between platforms or interact with a brand across multiple channels. For instance, a person may first see an ad on Facebook, then check out your Instagram page, and finally make a purchase from your website. Tracking this cross-platform interaction is crucial to understanding how different channels work together.
Why It’s Important:
- Provides a comprehensive view of the customer journey, including where they engage and ultimately convert.
- Helps optimize multi-channel strategies by identifying which platforms work best together.
- Informs budget allocation for social media advertising campaigns based on performance across various platforms.
Common Pitfalls:
- Failure to use integrated analytics tools that provide insights across multiple social networks.
- Overemphasis on isolated platform performance, ignoring the importance of cross-channel synergy.
4. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) from Social Media Channels
While many marketers are proficient in tracking metrics like clicks, conversions, and engagement, they often overlook the long-term value customers bring through social media channels. The Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) represents the total revenue a business expects to earn from a customer over the course of their relationship. When it comes to social media, CLV can be heavily impacted by repeated interactions, loyalty programs, and referral activities, yet many brands don’t effectively measure it.
Why It’s Important:
By tracking CLV from social media, marketers can better assess which platforms and strategies are driving long-term loyalty.
Helps in understanding whether social media is contributing to long-term business growth, or just short-term sales.
Optimizes budget spend and improves customer retention strategies on social media.
Common Pitfalls:
- Focusing solely on short-term metrics like initial conversions and neglecting ongoing customer relationships.
- Difficulty in tracking repeat purchases or interactions due to the lack of integrated CRM tools.
5. Organic Reach vs. Paid Reach
Organic reach (the number of people who see your content without paid promotion) and paid reach (the number of people who see your content through paid advertisements) are two distinct aspects of social media marketing. While the paid reach is typically easy to track through ad management platforms, organic reach is often not as closely followed. This means that brands may not understand how their content is performing without paid ads, and they might miss out on valuable organic growth.
Why It’s Important:
- Helps marketers understand how content resonates with the audience in an authentic, non-promoted way.
- Identifies high-performing content that can be used for paid campaigns.
- Allows brands to refine their content strategy for organic growth, reducing reliance on paid advertising.
Common Pitfalls:
- Ignoring the power of organic content, thinking it’s irrelevant compared to paid ads.
- Failing to differentiate between paid and organic reach when assessing a campaign’s success.
6. Share of Voice (SOV)
Share of voice is a metric that indicates how much of the conversation surrounding a particular topic, brand, or industry is dominated by your company, compared to competitors. It involves tracking brand mentions and assessing the total volume of conversations within your niche. Unfortunately, many brands do not track share of voice across social media platforms, which is an important indicator of overall brand presence.
Why It’s Important:
- Helps brands understand how their presence compares to competitors.
- Offers insights into how much of the market share is captured through social media activity.
- Can identify opportunities to increase visibility by comparing brand mentions to competitors.
Common Pitfalls:
- Tracking only direct mentions without considering the overall volume of conversations.
- Failing to monitor competitor activity, which can provide valuable competitive insights.
7. Video Completion Rate
While many marketers track video views, a more important metric often overlooked is the video completion rate—the percentage of people who watch a video all the way through. This metric is especially valuable as it provides deeper insights into how engaging or valuable your video content is to your audience.
Why It’s Important:
- Allows you to measure audience engagement more accurately than simply tracking views.
- Helps refine video content strategies, highlighting areas that need improvement.
- A high completion rate can indicate that the video is on-point with audience expectations and interests.
Common Pitfalls:
- Only focusing on views and impressions without looking at deeper engagement metrics.
- Underestimating the importance of optimizing video content to maintain audience attention.
8. Social Share of Sales (SSOS)
Social Share of Sales (SSOS) is a metric that quantifies the sales driven directly by social media channels. It’s important to distinguish between sales driven by traditional marketing channels versus those generated through social media campaigns. Many businesses do not track this metric in detail, instead relying on general traffic data or sales data without segmenting where those customers are coming from.
Why It’s Important:
- Helps brands assess the direct monetary impact of social media campaigns.
- Provides an accurate picture of how well social media is contributing to overall sales.
- Can identify which specific social media platforms drive the most sales and optimize campaigns accordingly.
Common Pitfalls:
- Tracking social media traffic without tying it to actual sales conversions.
- Failing to adjust campaigns based on the platform-specific sales data.
9. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) from Social Media
The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) metric measures how much it costs to acquire a new customer through various marketing channels. While CAC is commonly tracked for paid advertising, it is often not segmented by specific social media platforms or campaigns, making it difficult to understand the true cost-effectiveness of social media marketing efforts.
Why It’s Important:
- Understanding CAC allows businesses to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of their social media strategy.
- Helps determine if the spending on social media campaigns is generating value at a sustainable cost.
- Offers insights into which social platforms provide the best return on investment (ROI).
Common Pitfalls:
- Not factoring in the full funnel of social media marketing efforts.
- Failure to track the long-term impact of customer acquisition and lifetime value.
Conclusion
In the world of social media marketing, it’s easy to get fixated on common metrics such as likes, shares, and follower counts. However, by expanding the focus to include metrics that aren’t always tracked, like sentiment analysis, influencer impact, and customer lifetime value, marketers can obtain a more holistic view of their campaigns’ effectiveness. Tracking these often overlooked metrics can provide deeper insights into brand perception, customer behavior, and long-term profitability. By adjusting your strategy to consider these critical areas, you can make more informed decisions, optimize marketing efforts, and ultimately drive better results for your brand.
Related Topics
- What Are The Challenges Of Social Media Marketing?
- What Is the Use Case of Social Media Marketing?
- What Are Metrics in Social Media Marketing?
