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Understanding Social Media Metrics

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Dan Taylor
Dan Taylor

A brief guide to understanding metrics across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn as well as vanity metrics, and Klout.

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UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Cross Channel Terminology In the online world, there are a lot of terms that can be applied to various channels and situations. Here are five terms that can be applied to all social networks. Impressions Whether you work in PR, PPC or communications. Whatever your title if you produce content you measure impressions. Impressions in the realm of social media refers to the number of people that have had a piece of brand published content feature in their newsfeed. However, this should not be referred to as a sign of engagement or as a definite view as most brand created content is often overlooked in favour for user and peer created content. Engagements Engagements are simply the measure of interactions by an audience with a piece of content. Engagements are often seen as the be all and end all of social media, however the pursuit of business goals should always be the main focus. Interactions As mentioned in Engagements above, interaction is the tangible measure of engagements. A user interacts with brand content by retweeting, liking, sharing, commenting etc. Targeting As in PPC, targeting refers to who adverts are displayed too. Some networks have more advanced targeting than others however they all allow some form of targeting to ensure social marketers can ensure their paid advertisements are seen by users who fit their customer profiles. Benchmarks Benchmarks are used in social media the same as they are in other channels - to validate performance and justify budget allocation. Benchmarking against direct competitors and groups who market to the same audience is common practice, as is benchmarking against previous marketing efforts. Monthly/Daily Active Users Commonly abbreviated to MAU and DAU, these terms inform a brand how many users within their immediate audience are active.
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics are vanity. They make great headlines however they provide no real measure on performance. The best use of a vanity metric is to use it alongside benchmarks or when analysing trends. Vanity metrics vary between social media platforms. Facebook Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on Facebook are fans, likes, comments, followers and shares. Twitter Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on Twitter are followers, favourites, replies and retweets. I would also like to add to this list when someone adds you to a list, the measure of the number of lists you are on is a vanity. YouTube Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on YouTube are subscribers, views, likes and comments. LinkedIn Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on LinkedIn are followers, comments, shares and likes. Is Klout vanity? Klout is an online tool that measures influence, launched in 2008 it boasts over six-hundred million users globally. It measures social media influence taking into account 400 different factors along with 12 social metrics. Klout measures your influence and suggests content based on interests and what has performed well previously, logically by doing so your Klout score will increase as will your influence. Is Klout vanity? No. By using Klout as a learning and benchmarking tool you can gauge yourself more effectively against competitors. Automatically Klout assigns all Twitter users a score, however those who register can link multiple social channels and get a more accurate score for all networks.
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Facebook is the largest social media site in the world and boasts more metrics than any other network in it’s internal analysis tool Insights. However, not everything that matters is available in Insights. Average Reply Time The average time elapsed between a user posting onto the brands Facebook wall and when the brand actually replies. This metric allows a brand to understand and plan it’s customer service resources as well as provide an efficient and positive customer experience. Response Rate This metric is calculated by looking at how many responses a comment receives after it is posted onto a brands wall. This is useful in planning customer service resources. Boosting Facebook encourages brands to utilise the platform as a mass media service. As with PPC, brands must pay Facebook for their posts to reach wider audiences - this is called post boosting. Monthly/Daily Active Users Commonly abbreviated to MAU and DAU, these terms inform a brand how many users have used their Facebook App. Combined with engagement and benchmarks the effectiveness of a brands Facebook App can be measured. Reach The number of people that have been exposed to a piece of brand content - these are impressions and are not indicative of engagement or that the content has been consumed. When Fans are Online This is a useful metric to bear in mind when scheduling posts to achieve maximum organic reach and engagement. Page and Tab Visits Useful for a brand that uses custom tabs to enhance a user’s experience on Facebook, Timeline views are also logged in this feature in insights.
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140- character messages called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Twitter Analytics has developed and is a useful tool, however not all metrics can be measured from this. Average Reply Time The average time elapsed between a user tweeting using the brands handle and when the brand actually replies. This metric allows a brand to understand and plan it’s customer service resources as well as provide an efficient and positive customer experience. Response Rate This metric is calculated by looking at how many responses a comment receives after it is posted onto a brands wall. This is useful in planning customer service resources. Influencers By building relationships with key users who are able to influence your audience. It is also important to recognise yourself and competitors as influencers. Brands can amplify their messages and react to a potential PR crisis by working with and having positive relationships with key influencers. Sentiment Sentiment indicates whether or not the buzz around a brand’s Twitter handle is positive or negative. Sentiment is a metric that is best measured over time to analyse and identify trends rather than used as a snapshot to measure a single event or day. Twitter Cards Lead generation cards are like a promoted tweet, they can however be used to generate followers, leads and downloads (of guides).
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM YouTube metrics would be familiar to anyone from the TV advertising industry, however they provide more depth, accuracy and insight. YouTube is also the second largest search engine in the world, having a strong and meaningful brand presence on this channel is more important than ever. Estimated Minutes Watched The total sum of minutes watched by everyone that has viewed a YouTube video over it’s lifetime. This is more of a vanity metric and doesn’t read into engagement. Audience Retention It’s rare that a YouTuber makes it all the way through a video. This metric identifies how far a user gets into watching a video - or the percentage of the video that the average person watches. This is useful to identify any potential edits to the video, especially if key messages are at the end of the video and a large percentage of users don’t make it that far. Average Video Length This metric identifies the length of the average video within a particular channel or sector. Combine this with audience retention metrics and a brand can calculate an optimal video length and where to place key messages. Pre-roll Campaigns These are video ads that play before a video starts and are charged on a CPM (cost per thousand) on a views basis. The majority of these can be skipped after 5 seconds. To disable the skip button, you just pay more. Annotations These are messages that can be overlaid on videos to promote different videos and link off to other sites. These can be useful when trying to generate traffic to other sites.
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM LinkedIn has vastly improved it’s advertising offerings and is now the largest professional networking platform in the world. Through Showcase pages and it’s advanced jobs platform, reaching decision makers and potential hires is now easier than ever. Acquired Followers These are followers that a brand acquires through paid promotions, this enables a brand to justify spend to increase audience numbers. Audience LinkedIn will show whether or not content was sent to all followers. This is true for organic or targeted posts and for sponsored updates. Reach LinkedIn refers to impressions as reach. It’s the total number of times a piece of brand content was presented to users in their newsfeeds. A sub-metric of this is unique reach, which is the exact number of newsfeeds that the content is served on. The unique reach metric is accurate for a user may refresh their page multiple times affecting the reach metric. Engagement LinkedIn determines Engagement as a percentage of impressions against the total number of interactions and clicks. Hiring Updates Based on hiring patterns of a competitor you can gain insight into potential new products or a direction that they are going in. This is useful to pre-empt certain events and campaigns.
WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM

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Understanding Social Media Metrics

  • 2. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Cross Channel Terminology In the online world, there are a lot of terms that can be applied to various channels and situations. Here are five terms that can be applied to all social networks. Impressions Whether you work in PR, PPC or communications. Whatever your title if you produce content you measure impressions. Impressions in the realm of social media refers to the number of people that have had a piece of brand published content feature in their newsfeed. However, this should not be referred to as a sign of engagement or as a definite view as most brand created content is often overlooked in favour for user and peer created content. Engagements Engagements are simply the measure of interactions by an audience with a piece of content. Engagements are often seen as the be all and end all of social media, however the pursuit of business goals should always be the main focus. Interactions As mentioned in Engagements above, interaction is the tangible measure of engagements. A user interacts with brand content by retweeting, liking, sharing, commenting etc. Targeting As in PPC, targeting refers to who adverts are displayed too. Some networks have more advanced targeting than others however they all allow some form of targeting to ensure social marketers can ensure their paid advertisements are seen by users who fit their customer profiles. Benchmarks Benchmarks are used in social media the same as they are in other channels - to validate performance and justify budget allocation. Benchmarking against direct competitors and groups who market to the same audience is common practice, as is benchmarking against previous marketing efforts. Monthly/Daily Active Users Commonly abbreviated to MAU and DAU, these terms inform a brand how many users within their immediate audience are active.
  • 3. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics are vanity. They make great headlines however they provide no real measure on performance. The best use of a vanity metric is to use it alongside benchmarks or when analysing trends. Vanity metrics vary between social media platforms. Facebook Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on Facebook are fans, likes, comments, followers and shares. Twitter Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on Twitter are followers, favourites, replies and retweets. I would also like to add to this list when someone adds you to a list, the measure of the number of lists you are on is a vanity. YouTube Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on YouTube are subscribers, views, likes and comments. LinkedIn Vanity Metrics Vanity metrics on LinkedIn are followers, comments, shares and likes. Is Klout vanity? Klout is an online tool that measures influence, launched in 2008 it boasts over six-hundred million users globally. It measures social media influence taking into account 400 different factors along with 12 social metrics. Klout measures your influence and suggests content based on interests and what has performed well previously, logically by doing so your Klout score will increase as will your influence. Is Klout vanity? No. By using Klout as a learning and benchmarking tool you can gauge yourself more effectively against competitors. Automatically Klout assigns all Twitter users a score, however those who register can link multiple social channels and get a more accurate score for all networks.
  • 4. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Facebook is the largest social media site in the world and boasts more metrics than any other network in it’s internal analysis tool Insights. However, not everything that matters is available in Insights. Average Reply Time The average time elapsed between a user posting onto the brands Facebook wall and when the brand actually replies. This metric allows a brand to understand and plan it’s customer service resources as well as provide an efficient and positive customer experience. Response Rate This metric is calculated by looking at how many responses a comment receives after it is posted onto a brands wall. This is useful in planning customer service resources. Boosting Facebook encourages brands to utilise the platform as a mass media service. As with PPC, brands must pay Facebook for their posts to reach wider audiences - this is called post boosting. Monthly/Daily Active Users Commonly abbreviated to MAU and DAU, these terms inform a brand how many users have used their Facebook App. Combined with engagement and benchmarks the effectiveness of a brands Facebook App can be measured. Reach The number of people that have been exposed to a piece of brand content - these are impressions and are not indicative of engagement or that the content has been consumed. When Fans are Online This is a useful metric to bear in mind when scheduling posts to achieve maximum organic reach and engagement. Page and Tab Visits Useful for a brand that uses custom tabs to enhance a user’s experience on Facebook, Timeline views are also logged in this feature in insights.
  • 5. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM Twitter is an online social networking service that enables users to send and read short 140- character messages called "tweets". Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them. Twitter Analytics has developed and is a useful tool, however not all metrics can be measured from this. Average Reply Time The average time elapsed between a user tweeting using the brands handle and when the brand actually replies. This metric allows a brand to understand and plan it’s customer service resources as well as provide an efficient and positive customer experience. Response Rate This metric is calculated by looking at how many responses a comment receives after it is posted onto a brands wall. This is useful in planning customer service resources. Influencers By building relationships with key users who are able to influence your audience. It is also important to recognise yourself and competitors as influencers. Brands can amplify their messages and react to a potential PR crisis by working with and having positive relationships with key influencers. Sentiment Sentiment indicates whether or not the buzz around a brand’s Twitter handle is positive or negative. Sentiment is a metric that is best measured over time to analyse and identify trends rather than used as a snapshot to measure a single event or day. Twitter Cards Lead generation cards are like a promoted tweet, they can however be used to generate followers, leads and downloads (of guides).
  • 6. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM YouTube metrics would be familiar to anyone from the TV advertising industry, however they provide more depth, accuracy and insight. YouTube is also the second largest search engine in the world, having a strong and meaningful brand presence on this channel is more important than ever. Estimated Minutes Watched The total sum of minutes watched by everyone that has viewed a YouTube video over it’s lifetime. This is more of a vanity metric and doesn’t read into engagement. Audience Retention It’s rare that a YouTuber makes it all the way through a video. This metric identifies how far a user gets into watching a video - or the percentage of the video that the average person watches. This is useful to identify any potential edits to the video, especially if key messages are at the end of the video and a large percentage of users don’t make it that far. Average Video Length This metric identifies the length of the average video within a particular channel or sector. Combine this with audience retention metrics and a brand can calculate an optimal video length and where to place key messages. Pre-roll Campaigns These are video ads that play before a video starts and are charged on a CPM (cost per thousand) on a views basis. The majority of these can be skipped after 5 seconds. To disable the skip button, you just pay more. Annotations These are messages that can be overlaid on videos to promote different videos and link off to other sites. These can be useful when trying to generate traffic to other sites.
  • 7. WWW.KEYWORDSANDJARGON.COM LinkedIn has vastly improved it’s advertising offerings and is now the largest professional networking platform in the world. Through Showcase pages and it’s advanced jobs platform, reaching decision makers and potential hires is now easier than ever. Acquired Followers These are followers that a brand acquires through paid promotions, this enables a brand to justify spend to increase audience numbers. Audience LinkedIn will show whether or not content was sent to all followers. This is true for organic or targeted posts and for sponsored updates. Reach LinkedIn refers to impressions as reach. It’s the total number of times a piece of brand content was presented to users in their newsfeeds. A sub-metric of this is unique reach, which is the exact number of newsfeeds that the content is served on. The unique reach metric is accurate for a user may refresh their page multiple times affecting the reach metric. Engagement LinkedIn determines Engagement as a percentage of impressions against the total number of interactions and clicks. Hiring Updates Based on hiring patterns of a competitor you can gain insight into potential new products or a direction that they are going in. This is useful to pre-empt certain events and campaigns.