Do we need to focus on Linkedin impressions and likes? What makes a good post and how do we know if my page is successful? Communications Manager Alana Carrasco explains the important factors of LinkedIn Metrics.
Social media has transformed how organisations market their products and how businesses interact with their consumers.
What once wow-ed bosses when businesses first started to use social media – from how many ‘likes’ a post gets, to how many followers you have on your page – is no longer an adequate measure of the success of social media engagement.
Today, it is all about the return on investment. But how do you measure that?
I was recently shown the world of LinkedIn metrics and I found out just how useful it is to show to my current bosses and the project teams that I work with.
Engagement rates are the golden target
Out of all of the analytics, engagement rates are really what you want to be talking about to others in your organisation, especially if you want to talk about performance.
These figures show the percentage of viewers for each social media post that they have “interacted” with – such as sharing the post, or clicking on any links in the post. This shows people interest and by sharing the post on their pages, the message your organisation is trying to convey is reaching a wider audience than when you first posted it.
Any post with a 2% or more engagement rate is considered good – anything above 4% on LinkedIn in particular, is rare.
It’s not all about the impressions
The numbers for Linkedin impressions look great, but actually these just measure the number of viewers seeing this on their social media feeds as they’re scrolling on-screen. This to me is not a meaningful metric, as what people see on their feed is down to algorithms. Not all your followers may see your post at one time. So it is difficult to measure a good amount of impressions.
Smart sharing
To ensure that you collate the maximum analytics possible on your posts, those that share your posts would need to do so without any commentary on it.
Naturally there are pros and cons to this – commentary could arguably show more interest in what your post is about and encourage others to share the post further, thus widening the network of connections that the post gets to. It also depends on if the commentary has a positive or negative sentiment. If you’re trying to collate analytics for a report to your organisation, then you will only be able to get the figures for those who have shared the post without their own thoughts on it.
Who is your target audience?
I was amazed to learn that you can find out what sorts of occupations those who are engaging with your social media posts have. This could be helpful in determining if you are reaching the audience that you intended, or perhaps that you’re reaching a new audience that you previously weren’t able to, but that meets your ideal client demographic.
Caution needs to be exercised here though – you have to rely on the honesty of those interacting with your social media posts. I am sure that you all know of the pitfalls here.
You can also find out about geographic location too, which could be helpful if you’re trying to target specific regions of the world.
Give it a go!
I am a firm believer in trial and error. In communications and marketing jobs that can be easier said than done, but some margin for testing needs to be in place to see what works for your organisation.
Social media has certainly come a long way from the days when I was starting my communications career, setting up Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook accounts. I used to marvel my bosses with how quickly we were attracting followers and likes on our posts.
Now I need to work a bit harder to do this!
If you’d like help with your LinkedIn analytics or any social media marketing, get in touch today.
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