Canadian Small Business Women

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Social media metrics demystified

Evelyn

 

Happy New Year! I hope that like me, you had a restful, enjoyable holiday and that you’re looking forward to the opportunities of the coming year.

It’s at the turn of the year that we often take some time to make new goals, check our progress on existing targets and discard those aims that no longer apply. So it’s during this season of goal-setting that I think it’s important to take a look at your social media numbers.

When marketers talk about social media metrics, most small business owners tend to get lost in the jargon. But all metrics mean are the numbers we attach to our impact of our social media accounts. This can be as simple as how many followers your Twitter account has or as complex as how many sales you made that can be linked to a specific social campaign.

But let’s keep it simple shall we.

First let’s talk about why you need these numbers. Social media metrics act as gauge for how well you’re doing online. If you’re putting out quality content, engaging in conversations and maintaining a consistent presence on your networks, then your numbers should reflect that. If not, you might need to revaluate the content, audience or platform you’re working with.

Metrics give marketers, or small business owners, a way to determine a return on investment (ROI) for the time and money spent on social media marketing. They’re a way to value impact, ensure you’re reaching the right audience and provide feedback on what you’re doing right and what you should change.

There are three main areas that you should look at when trying to determine your social media impact: number of followers, how many followers are seeing and interacting with your content and which content is most successful. Each social network has its own way of tracking these interactions, so it’s important to find out what metric works best for each platform. For the purpose of this article, I’ll be taking a look at Facebook and Twitter.

 

Count your followers

The most basic way to tell if anyone is seeing your content is by determining how many followers you have. In theory, this should be the number of people who are potentially seeing your content at any given time, however in practice, only a fraction of your followers see your content.

 

Reach and engagement

While the number of followers is important, more important is how many of these people are actually seeing your content. On Facebook your Reach determines this metric. Reach is calculated by Facebook’s internal algorithms, the quality of your content and if you purchase ads. For Twitter, this number is not as easily tracked and is determined by how many of your followers are online at any given time.

Because the reach of your content is often out of your control, an easier number to look at is your engagement. On Facebook this number is based on how many people view, click or interact with your content. On Twitter you can track your engagement by counting how many clicks your tweets have. Unfortunately this metric is usually only accessible through paid metrics services such as Sprout Social. Another way to look at this number is by counting your link clicks. You can sign up for a free service called bit.ly that tracks this number for you.

 

Content is king

The most important metric you can track is how many of your followers are actually interested in your content. On Facebook this can be tracked by counting the likes, shares and comments on individual posts. The number of likes or shares your content gets determines how interesting your followers find it. On Twitter you can gauge your follower’s engagement by calculating retweets and mentions. Both of these metrics can tell you if your content is having an impact on your followers.

 

Once you start taking a closer look at your social media numbers you will need to set some goals. This way you can see if your time online is actually bringing you the results you want. Keep the goals small at first and then increase them as your business grows. Record your social media metrics on a spreadsheet or document each month so you can track your growth as the year goes on. This will also help you make new goals for your social marketing activities next year.

 

Good luck and happy 2015!

Evelyn Senyi is the owner and chief marketer for Recurve Marketing, a Toronto-based digital marketing agency that offers creative, effective and affordable marketing strategies for Canadian small businesses and non-profit organizations. Follow Recurve on Twitter @recurve_ca and on Facebook www.facebook.com/recurvemarketing.ca.

How to unplug from social media for the holidays

Evelyn

The holidays are just around the corner and hopefully you’re planning some well deserved time off. Yet if you’re a small business owner it can be difficult to take the time you need to rest and rejuvenate for the New Year. Emails, phone calls and the ping of social media notifications can be hard to ignore. You also worry that your online presence might suffer from your absence. But it’s important to know how and when to unplug, without losing your spot on the social media hierarchy.

Schedule content ahead of time

If you’re not already using a social media dashboard such as Hootsuite or Buffer, now is the time to look into one. Dashboards make scheduling content easy and can act as an inbox for all those notifications. Schedule a tweet or post a day. That’s enough to stay alive online, but not so much that the responses become unmanageable.

Set a time limit

Set aside ten minutes a day to check the accounts; then shut it down and walk away. By setting a time limit you can reassure yourself that all is well, without taking up too much of your personal time. Check to make sure there are no emergencies but then shut off the notifications. If you use Hootsuite you can actually create “quiet time” where your notifications go silent. Better yet, turn off the phone.

Only answer urgent inquiries

Be smart about what you respond to. Is that question urgent? Is that issue an emergency? It’s easy to want to answer everything right away, but many of the queries you receive can wait a few days until you’re back at work. Only answer those questions that are truly urgent.

Allow yourself to let go

Too often we get caught up in the details. While one negative tweet might seem catastrophic at the time, in the overall big picture it’s not worth much worry. The same goes for checking the Facebook page and sending out that tweet. If you go silent for a few days, nothing terrible will happen. Your business will not fail and your customers will not desert you. In fact they’re probably not online either.

My past experience as a social media manager for a large charity taught me the importance of work-life balance when it comes to managing your online communications. While being online and listening is important, having the courage to turn it off and take time for yourself and your family is just as, if not more, important.

So this holiday, turn off the phone and enjoy the season. I promise your followers will still be there in January.

Happy Holidays.

 

Evelyn Senyi is the owner and chief marketer for Recurve Marketing, a Toronto-based digital marketing agency that offers creative, effective and affordable marketing strategies for Canadian small businesses and non-profit organizations. Follow Recurve on Twitter @recurve_ca and on Facebook www.facebook.com/recurvemarketing.ca.