Running reports each month and looking at your social media analytics is a task in itself, but if you don’t know what the numbers mean, it’s even more challenging to find a way to use them to your advantage. If terms such as reach, impressions, and engagement don’t ring a bell, have no fear! We’re breaking down the basic of social analytics.
Reach
There are different types of reach across different platforms. There is also organic and paid reach. Paid reach is the number of people who saw a paid post from your company in their newsfeed. These people were chosen through specific targeting when you set up your ad or boosted post. Organic reach is unpaid and can come from your posts naturally appearing in a fan’s newsfeed, or from a user visiting your company Facbeook page.
Impressions
Impressions often get confused with reach, as this term also deals with how many people see your posts. However, impressions is the actual count of how many times one person sees a piece of content. The best way to remember the difference between the two is to think of it this way: if a newsletter is received by three people, the reach would be three. If one of those people opened it twice, the impressions would be four.
Engagement
Engagement is simply the number of interactions people have with your content. This includes likes, comments, shares, retweets, and saves depending on which channel you are using. Explore posting different types of content on different pages to help gauge what type of engagement you get and what works best. However, just because a certain type of content performs well doesn’t mean you post only that type of content. The best strategy is always to mix it up.
Now that you have these terms down, you will be able to run monthly reports to compare metrics, and develop effective social strategies.
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