One of the things we do on a regular basis at Katie Wagner Social Media is track how things are going. I’m not talking about looking back at a few posts to see if there was some engagement or if there seem to be more fans than there were before. No, we keep track of numbers on reports. It gives us a true picture of how things are going with our clients’ accounts. How many fans did we actually get last month? How much traffic was sent from any given social media channel to the website? What type of content was the most popular? If you are serious about growing your social media presence, you should keep track, too. Here’s why:
Numbers Don’t Lie
The great thing about writing down the stats from your social media channels is you can look back and see exactly how things are going. You can see where you have had tremendous growth and where you need to give things more attention. It gives you a very objective view of how your social media efforts are progressing.
It Keeps You Engaged
When you are regularly reviewing your analytics and looking back at the work you have done, it makes you think about what you can do differently moving forward. It keeps you engaged because as you see posts that are doing well, you think of ways to do similar posts. If you see posts that aren’t getting much engagement, you know to change it up. Social media is such an immediate, forward looking medium that it’s easy to lose track of what has already been done. If you can review and assess your work – the good and the bad – you can move forward toward your goals in a more strategic way.
It Helps You Achieve Your Goals
Peter Drucker once said “You can’t manage what you don’t measure.” This is absolutely true with social media. If you are keeping track of how many fans you have, you will naturally work towards getting more fans. If you are tracking what kind of traffic you are sending from Facebook to your website, you will find ways to post more links back to your website. Additionally, if you set very specific goals for your social media, keeping track of how things are going will allow you to see the progress you are making and give you an idea of what it will take to achieve those goals.
Since every business has different goals for social media, it’s hard to be specific about what numbers you should be tracking. However, on most social media channels, you can view fans, reach, and engagement. All of these are important and should be tracked. Additionally, I recommend keeping track of how much traffic is being sent to your website from social media. Lastly, I wrote another blog post on Three Website Analytics Every Business Owner Should Track. If you are new to analytics for your website, you should definitely read it.
As always, if you have any questions, please comment below and I will be sure to get back to you with an answer!
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Photo credit: @bbresna
