Even the most adept social media professional can struggle to effectively show their C-suite why their contributions matter. Your senior leadership may insist on metrics you know to no longer hold the weight they once did. Or you may be stuck trying to explain why a comment shows more engagement than a like or an impression.
But these conversations are an unfortunate reality, so how can you determine which metrics are right for your brand and explain these metrics in a way the C-suite understands?
In a recent webinar on this very topic, Gadi Ben-Yehuda, director of social media for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, explained what metrics he focuses on in his day-to-day work and how he communicates those results with his senior leadership.
Here are his three main tips for proving the value of your social media content to the organization:
Impressions: Mostly Outdated, but Still Play a Part
Ben-Yehuda explained that while he generally agrees with the common belief that impressions are an outdated social media metric, he does still track them—but in a unique way. His method involves determining how many impressions equals 100 percent for his team (which he figures out by tracking the average-performing recent posts), and then assigns percentages to each post for the previous month based on how many impressions they received over or under the 100 percent mark. By laying these relative percentages out on a spreadsheet, Ben-Yehuda has a clear picture of which social content is performing best, a valuable insight for future campaigns.
The Importance of Interactions on Facebook
While focusing on the content of your social posts is important, don’t forget to pay attention to how your audiences are interacting with it—particularly on Facebook. Not only does it show deep engagement with your content, Ben-Yehuda said, but it can help you come out on top in Facebook’s algorithm, which prioritizes posts with high levels of engagement. The more interactions your post has, the more likely your current followers are to see that post in their newsfeeds, as well as subsequent posts. And, those who do interact with a given post are more likely to see your next post as well, Ben-Yehuda said.
Metrics and Facebook Live
As director of social media for his organization, Ben-Yehuda has to find cost-effective methods of engaging with audiences on social. And one method that has proven to be successful for him and his team is Facebook Live streams about the field of science. To show his senior leadership how the Facebook Live videos performed, Ben-Yehuda makes sure to provide immediate statistics, as well as “overnights” (any changes in numbers that show up the next day). While the hope with live video is that audiences will connect with it as it airs, many people watch broadcasts after they have concluded, so it’s important to keep that in mind when reporting metrics. By measuring total views, partial views, viewer counts, engagements and clicks-to-play, among benchmarks in the day after the Facebook Live, Ben-Yehuda is able to show a clear picture of success to the C-suite.
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