7 Key Social Media Metrics You Need to Track in 2024

In the realm of social media marketing, understanding and tracking key social media metrics is crucial for assessing the effectiveness of your content and strategies. These social media metrics provide insights into how your audience interacts with your content, the reach of your brand, and the overall impact of your social media presence.

I keep emphasizing on “social media metrics” because they should not be confused with website metrics, search metrics, and other metrics.

Table of Contents

The 7 Key Social Media Metrics

Hootsuite suggested 21 Social Media Metrics to track in 2024, while other major Social Media analytics leaders have their own numbers, I believe the seven below are vital in 2024: including Reach, Impressions, Engagement Rate, Amplification Rate, Virality Rate, Audience Growth Rate, and Social Share of Voice (SSoV), each offering a unique perspective and formulas to calculate to benchmark on your social media performance.

Reach

Reach refers to the total number of individuals who view your content.

It signifies the extent to which your content has spread. An important aspect of this metric is the proportion of your reach that consists of followers versus non-followers. A high reach among non-followers suggests that your content is being widely shared or is performing well in platform algorithms.

Impressions

Impressions represent the total number of times your content has been viewed.

This metric reflects the performance of your content. Impressions can exceed reach since an individual might view your content multiple times. A notably high ratio of impressions to reach indicates repeated views of a post, warranting investigation into what makes your content particularly engaging.

Key Distinction

The primary distinction between impressions and reach is that:

Reach denotes the unique number of individuals who have seen the post.
Impressions denote the total number of times the post has been viewed.

Engagement Rate

The Engagement Rate is the percentage of engagements relative to your content.

Engagement encompasses various metrics, such as “reactions, comments, and shares” on Facebook. Depending on the platforms, the engagements are different and can be measured in various ways.

For simplicity, we’ll consider Facebook using the thee basic and important metrics: Followers, Reach, and Impressions.

Average Engagement Rate by Followers:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Total Likes, Comments, \& Shares}}{\textsf{Total Followers}} \times 100}$

Average Engagement Rate by Reach:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Total Likes, Comments, \& Shares}}{\textsf{Total Reach}} \times 100}$

Average Engagement Rate by Impressions:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Total Likes, Comments, \& Shares}}{\textsf{Total Impressions}} \times 100}$

These measures the engagement rate by three important metrics, at the simplest forms. There are actually more in-depth formulas to calculate, such as by day, by video views, by cost, etc.

Amplification Rate

The Amplification Rate is the ratio of shares per post to the total number of followers.

A higher amplification rate indicates that your followers are effectively extending your content’s reach.

Amplification Rate:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Total Post Shares}}{\textsf{Total Followers}} \times 100}$

This rate measures the extent to which your followers are broadening your reach.

Virality Rate

The Virality Rate calculates shares as a percentage of impressions.

It is akin to the Amplification Rate but rather than followers, it uses impressions, thus serving different and equally important purpose.

This is because each new share introduces your content to a new audience, generating additional impressions.

Virality Rate:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Number of Shares}}{\textsf{Number of Impressions}} \times 100}$

This rate measures the spread of your content.

Audience Growth Rate

The Audience Growth Rate quantifies the increase in your brand’s followers on social media over a specified time frame.

For emerging brands, a modest increase in followers can result in a high growth rate. However, for established brands with a larger follower base, sustaining growth momentum requires a more significant influx of new followers.

Audience Growth Rate:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{New Followers (Over a Period)}}{\textsf{Total Audience (All Time)}} \times 100}$

This rate measures your brand’s growth momentum.

The Social Share of Voice (SSoV) compares the frequency of mentions of your brand to those of your competitors.

Mentions can be categorized as:

Direct: through tagging in posts (e.g., @ExampleBrand).
Indirect: mentioning your brand without tagging (e.g., "ExampleBrand" and #ExampleBrand).

To calculate SSoV, sum both direct and indirect mentions for your brand and those of your competitors. SSoV provides a competitive analysis of your brand’s visibility and relevance in the market.

Social Share of Voice:

$\displaystyle \mathsf{\frac{\textsf{Brand Mentions} + \textsf{Competitors' Mentions}}{\textsf{Total Mentions}} \times 100}$

SSoV is essentially a competitive analysis of how visible and relevant your brand is in the market; by selecting more competitors, the more complex it gets, but more accurate it will be.

Conclusion

Monitoring key social media metrics like Reach, Impressions, Engagement Rate, Amplification Rate, Virality Rate, Audience Growth Rate, and Social Share of Voice (SSoV) is crucial for refining your online strategy. In addition, you may be interested in knowing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

These social media metrics, while not new, are becoming more important especially in 2024. They offer insights into your content’s performance and audience engagement, helping you make informed decisions to boost your brand’s social media presence and achieve your marketing objectives.