What Does a ‘Win’ Look Like? (On Social Media)
In Part 1 of our 3 Part series about Social Media, we identified that the 'point' of your brand's presence on Social Media is to 'exceed customer expectations'. So logically, in Part 2, we need to figure out what goals to set in order to measure whether or not we are exceeding customer expectations.
Here's a brief, and not complete, list of KPI's that could be included in our measurements:
Reach
Likes
Reaction
Comments
Shares
Page Views
Actions on Page
Page Likes
Page Followers
Video Metrics (which can then be subdivided into many other metrics)
Clicks
KPI's vary from one client to the next - so identifying the 'win' before you start is often an important step. Believe it or not, you can pay for some of what's on that list (Reach), but you cannot pay for real, authentic 'Engagement'. People are either interested in your content and engage with it, or they aren’t and they don't. In my opinion, you should really be focused on two main goal-posts: 'Engagement' and the 'Content Rear View Mirror'.
Engagement:
Essentially, 'Engagement' is loosely defined as most of that previous list: likes, reactions, comments, shares, video views, post interactions, clicks, etc. It's not just viewing the post, it's taking some sort of action after viewing the post. And that's really the point of setting 'Engagement' as one of your goal-posts, you don't just want your audience to scroll past your content. You want them to stop and absorb the content, and ideally take some sort of action. Maybe that's viewing a video, or clicking through a photo gallery. In a Paid Ad strategy, maybe it's leveraging video content to entice the audience to 'Learn More' and click to learn more about a product, service, or offer.
Content Rear View Mirror:
You can get a toddler's attention by jingling your car keys in front of them (I am already feeling old as modern car keys don't jingle...), but after a couple jingles, that toddler isn't going to pay attention to you because there's no long-term interest in keys, just short-term interest in the shiny new object. If you look back in your Social Media feed, is it full of a bunch of key-jingling? And what I mean is, is your content full of posts/images / videos / graphics that have zero link back to your market positioning, and instead are attempts to gain short-term attention? We do not advocate for that. It's a waste of time for the audience, and it's a waste of time for you. You need to find a way to make your content bolster your positioning, and if it doesn't, you are barking up the wrong tree attempting to get the wrong kind of attention.
What happens when content that supports your positioning is ignored/performs poorly on Social Media? Well, the straight-forward answer is: who cares? Yep, Social Media is one component of your Business Development stack, but is it the only component? Will the content you create (and are proud of) be used in email marketing, shown to captive audiences, perhaps on the News section of your website, sent to prospective clients in a follow-up email, etc? If so....then who cares? Social Media matters, but you should not create content that only appeases your audience on Social Media.
If you take a step back and identify what a 'win' looks like with respect to 'Engagement' and the 'Content Rear View Mirror', it should become clear that you are either on the right path, or maybe you need to take some time to make some modifications. One other parting thought: what you don't post is just as important as what you do post. Maybe that's an article for another day...?
