What Social Media Insights are Most Important?

When using social media for your small business, it is important to make sure you are using the resources available to you in order to see how your posts are performing. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest have made it easy by integrating analytics and social media insights into the platforms and recently Instagram has done the same for business accounts.

Paying attention to these insights can help you learn what times are the best to post and which demographics you are reaching the most. These insights are a simple way for you to improve your social media marketing.

What social media insights should you be paying attention to?

Reach - This is important because you want to make sure people are seeing your posts. There are two types of reach: organic and paid. Organic is simply what is naturally seen by your audience while paid reach shows you the results from your paid advertising. If your organic reach is high, it means your content is on point with what your followers want to see. Looking at both organic and paid is important so you know what activities are driving the best results.

Engagement (or interaction with your posts) - Your main goal should always be to engage with your audience, making this insight probably the most important. If people are liking, sharing, and commenting on your posts, then it means the content is speaking to them, and, therefore, performing. This interaction is also noted by algorithms, which can help your content reach more people.

Click-through rates - This is another form of interaction and can show you what content is worth sharing, whether it is your own website content or someone else’s. One of the main objectives of social media is to drive traffic to your website. Measuring the click-through rates on links you share is how you know if that is happening. It also gives you insight as to what content is most valuable to your audience.

Type of post consumption - You may be posting pictures, videos or a link and this insight will allow you to see what types of posts do the best. Posting more of what your audience likes can lead to an increase in all of the other insights that we have listed above.

What if your social media insights aren’t showing you the results you had hoped for?

This is when you simply look at what you’ve done and make adjustments. It’s pretty difficult to be perfect right out of the gate and all companies, even marketing companies, miss the mark sometimes. Getting your social groove can take some time and many rounds of trial and error. Don’t let the numbers get you down. Simply look at it as an opportunity to explore new ideas and try new styles.

What if your insights are showing you how awesome you are?

Well, if the numbers are speaking volumes then I’ve got some advice for you: keep up the good work. Pay special attention to the highest performing posts and make note of what you did. Continue to push content that fits that mold and if the insights continue to show high performance, then you know what is working and what you need to keep doing.

Reviewing your insights does require a little time and effort. But it's a worthwhile investment because without reviewing these insights, you’re shooting blind in the social media space. There are also professionals who do analytics and consulting for a living if you'd prefer to pay a small fee to have the data spoon fed to you. Either way, don’t ignore this valuable data.