Social media isn't just about posting great content – it's also about looking at how it performs.
These days, nearly two-thirds of the global population uses social media. With so many people scrolling, it's no surprise that social media has become a vital channel for marketing – but demonstrating its value can be challenging.
The problem is that many marketers are still a bit stuck on measuring return on investment (ROI), and that can be tricky to measure across social media. For example, if somebody decides to buy one of your products after seeing a post on Instagram, they might switch to their browser and Google your brand name to find your website – making that journey (and its origins) really hard to track.
For this reason, only about 54% of marketers are confident they can accurately measure ROI across their digital channels (social media included). At the same time, brands continue to pour resources into social media. It's also worth noting that over half of marketing decision-makers planned to increase their social media investment in 2023, so you can really see the channel's perceived importance.
While it is possible to prove the impact of your efforts, it's all about tracking the right social media metrics. This is where you see how your efforts can lead to real business outcomes.
In this article, we’ll break down the key social media metrics you need to know, how to measure them, and why they matter. We'll also look at how the Brandwatch tool suite can help you track all of your social media metrics in one place, complete with custom dashboards and curated reports.
By the end, you’ll be able to navigate everything from awareness and engagement to customer service and that all-important ROI – and you'll be able to figure out where you stand compared to the latest industry benchmarks and expectations.
Setting Goals: Align Metrics with Your Objectives
Before diving into dozens of metrics, you'll need to step back and think about your social media goals.
What does success look like for your organization? Common objectives include increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads or sales, and improving customer satisfaction.
According to a recent survey, nearly 70% of social media marketers prioritize brand awareness as a primary goal, followed by increasing web traffic (52%) and growing their audience (46%). Being clear on your goals lead you directly to the metrics matter most.
For example, if brand awareness is key, you’ll focus on reach and impression metrics. If lead generation or sales are the goal, conversion and ROI metrics will be your north star. Most likely, you’ll balance multiple objectives.
The important thing is to make sure each metric you track maps to a business outcome you care about. This way, you can avoid “vanity metrics” that look impressive but don’t drive real value.
It's also good to make your goals specific, as this tends to be more motivating. So rather than simply “increase engagement,” define targets like “improve Instagram engagement rate by 2% this quarter” or “drive 100 demo sign-ups via social media this month.” This gives you clarity on what you need to track when looking at the metrics.
Awareness Metrics: Measuring Reach and Growth
Awareness metrics tell you how many people see your content and how fast your social presence is growing. These metrics are crucial if brand visibility is a priority.
The first metric to think about here is follower count. This is one we're all familiar with. It simply tells you the number of followers or fans on each platform, so gives you a basic measure of your audience size.
Next up, we have impressions. This is how many times your content was displayed. High impressions mean your posts are being served frequently in feeds.
And then there's reach. This is the number of unique people who saw your content – even if they're not a follower. Reach differs from impressions since a single user can have multiple impressions. Strong reach means content has made its way to a broad audience.
Mentions and share of voice can tell you how often people mention your brand (tagging or referencing you), and your share of the conversation compared to competitors. This gives you an idea of brand visibility beyond your own posts.
Why it matters
Awareness is the thing that's going to get people into the top of your sales funnel. If people aren’t seeing your content, you're unlikely to see much in the way of engagement or conversions.
Tracking these particular social media metrics can give you confidence that your social channels are growing and reaching new prospects. For instance, an uptick in follower count and reach month-over-month indicates your brand awareness is on the rise.
Given that global social media usage is only going up, you have an ever-expanding audience to capture.
Engagement Metrics: How Much Your Audience Interacts
Engagement metrics go even deeper than awareness – they reveal how people interact with your content.
High engagement means your posts are hitting the spot with your audience and prompting them to take action.
The most obvious engagement metrics include likes, reactions and saves (or favorites). These act as simple indicators that somone saw and acknowledged your post. These are the easiest form of engagement, since it doesn't take much effort to hit a like button.
Comments and replies are even better. When users take time to comment, it shows deeper interest. Comments are also great opportunities for you to join the conversation or gather feedback.
Shares and retweets can be a strong endorsement, too. Your follower found the content valuable enough to share with their network, and this will amplify your reach.
Clicks can fall under the engagement umbrella, too. If you include links (to a blog or product page, for example), your click-through rate will give you an idea of how many people were interested enough to learn more or take action.
Finally, look at your engagement rate, which puts all of the above social media metrics into context.
Engagement rate is typically calculated as total engagements (likes, comments, shares, and so on) divided by total impressions or reach. It shows what percentage of viewers actually engaged. An engagement rate will help you compare your performance across posts or platforms, controlling for audience size differences.
Why it matters
Engagement metrics reflect content quality and audience connection.
For example, if you’re getting lots of impressions but not seeing much engagement, it may be a sign that your content isn’t compelling or targeted correctly.
On the other hand, a high engagement rate is a sign of an active, interested community.
Keep an eye on which types of posts get the most engagement – this can inform the content side of your social media strategy.
When you look closer, you might discover that your how-to videos get shared twice as often as other posts, or that posts with questions get more comments. These insights help you come up with even better content in the future.
Engaged followers are more likely to become customers down the line, so building engagement is a must-have step in the social media funnel.
Conversion and ROI Metrics: Proving the Value of Social
When you're putting a lot of money into your social media efforts, it makes sense that you want to make sure you're getting something in return.
Thankfully, there is a way to figure this out via social media metrics.
Conversion metrics track how social content translates into actions like website visits, sign-ups, or purchases. ROI metrics then tie those actions back to revenue. This will allow you to prove the value of social media in financial terms – often the biggest challenge for social media managers.
The most important conversion and ROI metric is probably your click-through rate (CTR). This gives you the percentage of people who clicked on a link in your social post out of those who saw it. This is why it's important to use links wherever possible, and make them trackable.
Next up, look at traffic from social. Using web analytics, you can measure how many visitors come to your website from social media channels. You can even break it down by platform to see which channel drives the most traffic.
Then, look at conversions from social – but first, define what a “conversion” is for your goal (maybe it's a product purchase, form fill or subscription). Whatever your specified conversion, track the number attributable to social media visitors. This often involves setting up conversion tracking in Google Analytics or your CRM and tagging social traffic.
Your conversion rate can tell you a lot, too. This takes your social media traffic and gives you the percentage that converts. For example, if 1,000 people clicked your Facebook ad and 50 made a purchase, the conversion rate is 5%.
Finally, social media ROI is the ultimate metric – since it tells you how much revenue is generated from your social media efforts relative to the cost.
A basic formula is: ROI = (Revenue from social – Costs of social) / Costs of social × 100%.
If you spent $1,000 on social media marketing in a month and it directly drove $5,000 in sales, the ROI = ((5000–1000)/1000)*100 = 400%.
Positive ROI means social is paying off; negative ROI means you’re spending more than you earn from social, and social media strategy adjustments are needed.
Why it matters
ROI metrics give you cold hard data that proves your social media efforts have lead to business profit, and this is crucial for securing continued support and budget.
This is also where many struggle – measuring social media ROI is notoriously tricky, because you can't always tell exactly which social media post (or campaign) led to a sale.
It’s no surprise then that marketers consistently cite ROI measurement as difficult, with barely half feeling confident in their ability to gauge ROI across digital channels.
The good news is that improving attribution (using tracking links, analytics tools, and aligning with sales data) can give you a better the ROI picture.
Business leaders are increasingly asking for proof that social media contributes to the bottom line. By tracking conversions and ROI, you can answer that call. For instance, you might be able to report that “Facebook drove 200 webinar sign-ups, which led to $50,000 in pipeline revenue this quarter.”
Tying your social media metrics to dollars earned is useful in lots of ways. It not only justifies your work but also helps get the best out of future campaigns by focusing on tactics with the best return.
Remember that social media’s impact can extend beyond immediate direct sales – it influences brand loyalty, customer lifetime value, and word-of-mouth. Still, having concrete ROI data gives you a strong foundation to stand on.
Customer Service Metrics: Responsiveness and Satisfaction
Social media isn’t just great for marketing – it’s also a customer service channel. Many consumers now turn to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram to ask questions, get help, or vent their complaints.
That means customer service metrics on social media are essential to monitor.
Look out in particular for response time – in other words, how quickly your team responds to customer inquiries or comments on social. This can be measured as an average or median time (say, 2 hours).
Many social media users expect swift replies. In fact, about 79% of consumers expect brands to respond to their social media messages within 24 hours, and a sizable portion expect a reply within just an hour of reaching out. Fast response times can get you more customer satisfaction, whereas slow responses may frustrate customers and harm your reputation.
Similarly, your response rate will give you a percentage of inbound messages or mentions that you respond to. A high response rate (answering most if not all legitimate inquiries) signals strong attentiveness. For example, if you receive 100 questions on Twitter and reply to 95 of them, your response rate is 95%.
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores sometimes pop up, too. Some companies use surveys after a social support interaction (like a simple follow-up message asking “How was your experience?”). These can provide a satisfaction rating for your social customer service.
Another interesting one is the issue resolution rate. Meaning, out of the customer issues raised on social, how many are fully resolved or answered to completion. If 50 support requests came in via social this week and 45 were resolved, that’s a 90% resolution rate.
Finally, look at sentiment. The Brandwatch Consumer Research tool will help you with this.
Tracking the sentiment of customer comments (and sifting them into positive, neutral, negative) can reveal how your audience feels about your brand on social media. In general, an improved sentiment over time indicates better customer experiences.
Why it matters
Today’s consumers often turn to social media as a first resort for help. How you respond (and how quickly) directly impacts brand perception and loyalty.
Companies that excel in social media customer care reap rewards. Studies have shown that engaging with customer service requests on social media can increase revenue per customer by 20% to 40%. In other words, customers appreciate responsive service so much that they spend more with the brand. It makes sense – if a customer knows they can post a complaint on X and get a quick, helpful response, they’ll be more inclined to buy from that company again.
On the flip side, ignoring customers on social can have serious downsides. Unanswered complaints are visible to the public and can erode trust. It’s often said that social media customer service is a spectator sport: even people who aren’t directly involved see how you handle issues. That’s why maintaining a high response rate and friendly tone is crucial, even with difficult complaints.
For social media managers, this means you should treat customer questions and comments on your pages as urgent tasks, not afterthoughts.
Track your average response time and strive to meet customer expectations (for example, replying within the same day is a good baseline). If your metrics show you’re lagging – say your average response time is 48 hours and customers expect 24 hours – consider adjusting your workflow or resources to improve that.
Your responsiveness can directly impact customer retention. After a positive interaction on social, customers are not only more likely to remain loyal; many will also recommend your brand to others, which is a huge bonus!
Putting It All Together: Tips for Effective Metrics Tracking
In this guide, we’ve covered a range of social media metrics across awareness, engagement, conversions, and customer care.
Here are some final tips for making the most of your social media metrics.
Focus on the social media metrics that map to your goalsIt’s easy to get overwhelmed by data. To avoid this, hone in on a core set of metrics that best indicate progress toward your defined objectives.
For example, if your goal is lead generation, prioritize tracking link clicks, conversions, and conversion rate from social campaigns, rather than just likes or impressions.
Benchmark and iterate
Record your baseline metrics and track trends over time.
If your engagement rate was 2% last quarter and it’s 3% this quarter, that’s a positive trend – what did you do differently? Likewise, watch for dips in metrics and investigate the cause (did your content strategy change? Has a platform’s algorithm shifted?).
Benchmark against industry averages when available, but also against your own historical performance.
Use tools to simplify tracking
As you track social media metrics, you'll likely get really familiar with the analytics tools offered by each platform.
Most social networks have built-in analytics, but third party tools like Brandwatch Social Media Management will help you take your data tracking to the next level by consolidating metrics from multiple social media channels into one customizable dashboard.
These can automate data collection and even send alerts for significant changes. For example, setting up a weekly report on key metrics can save you time and ensure you stay informed.
Report the metrics that matter to stakeholders
It's particularly important to tailor your reporting to your audience, and Brandwatch Social Media Management can help with this too – providing actionable insights to help with your to-do list.
Executives might care most about high-level outcomes like ROI or customer satisfaction improvements. Your social team might dig into engagement rates and content performance details. Translate the numbers into insights and recommendations.
Instead of just saying “Twitter impressions increased 15%,” you might report “Twitter impressions increased 15%, likely due to the new hashtag strategy – we should continue that approach.”
Keep an eye on external trends
Social media trends, and even platform features, can change by the day.
Metrics norms can also change as platforms evolve (for instance, the rise of short-form video might change what “good engagement” looks like).
Also, be aware of broader industry stats for context. If you know that 50% of marketers are increasing their social media spend going into this year, it signals that many organizations see value in social – and your metrics reporting can help explain that value internally.
Final thoughts on social media metrics
Being a social media manager today means being fluent in data. The era of “post and pray” is over – successful social strategies are backed by metrics every step of the way, and you're more likely to have an idea of what tactics will get you better results.
By tracking awareness, engagement, conversion, and customer service metrics, you gain a 360-degree view of your social media performance. This complete picture enables you to celebrate what’s working, fix what’s not, and make the case for social media’s impact on the business.
Remember that while numbers are important, context is key. For this reason, it's important to combine quantitative metrics with qualitative insights (like examples of positive customer interactions or viral posts) to tell a compelling story.
For instance, you might highlight how a spike in engagement for a certain campaign led to a wave of new trials, or how improving response time by an hour boosted customer praise on social channels. If you can support these narratives with solid data, you'll be able to demonstrate the true power of your social media channels.
In summary, it's good to embrace social media metrics – they are your friends. And with a little help from Brandwatch, you'll have all the evidence you need to refine your tactics and to prove that your work on social is moving the needle.
Now, it’s time to dive into your dashboards, track those metrics, and watch your social media performance thrive!
