What’s the best measure for social success?

Have you heard?

Stephen Graham (2017) discusses on AdNews why engagement metrics are misleading to a brand’s social media success. The initial buzz of likes, post reactions, shares and comments can imply the content is resonating with your audience. But this buzz becomes an ‘echo chamber’ – where it could fade into vague inference of brand awareness and consideration. Suggesting we should steer away from purely optimizing towards engagement and rather looking at continually reaching as many of our fans and customers as possible.

Paykel Proposes…

Here at Paykel Media we understand every client uses their social media pages to achieve different objectives. Some use social to build a community hub for likeminded people, or some solely use it as an on-target reach tool and others use it to speak to the possible 98% of their Facebook fan base they now cannot reach organically (Source: Locowise 2015 – see below). So depending on the client, it is paramount that we build KPIs catered to their individual objectives.

While Stephen (2017) mentions that engagement is not a reliable metric, for some it is more valuable than a simple impression. It is important to see your audience consistently engaging with your brand, especially with your product focused posts. Engagement shouldn’t be a metric standing on its own, but rather complimenting others (e.g. Reach) to understand true success.

References:

Cohen, D. (2015). STUDY: Facebook page posts net 2.6% organic reach in march. ADWEEK. Referenced from: http://www.adweek.com/digital/locowise-march-2015/

Graham, S. (2017). Why marketers need to wean themselves off social engagement metrics. AdNews. Referenced from: http://www.adnews.com.au/opinion/why-marketers-need-to-wean-themselves-off-social-engagement-metrics