Sometimes understanding exactly what metrics you are tracking on your social media pages can be quite confusing. There are several terms for all different social media and website metrics. Here, you will find a compilation of the different social media terms and their definitions found on various social media blogs and websites.
Social Media Metrics
- Leads = potential conversions. These include anyone with the need or interest to pursue your product or service.
- Engagement = the total number of likes, shares, and comments on a post.
- Reach = a measurement of the size of the audience you are communicating with.
- Impressions = a look at how many social media users saw your post.
- Conversation rate = This one is fairly straightforward in that it's based on the number of conversations per post. On Twitter, this is replies to a tweet, or on Pinterest, Facebook, and Instagram, it's a comment on the pin, post, or photo.
- Amplification rate = Any time a post is retweeted or re-shared on Twitter, for example, it's being amplified. Each social media network allows you to do this- ie. the number of re-pins (Pinterest), retweets (Twitter), or shares (Facebook, Instagram) of a particular post.
- Applause rate = Every social network out there has an "easy button" to show appreciation, or applause. Twitter has favorites, Facebook has likes, Google+ has plusses, Instagram has likes/loves, and even most blogs have thumbs up or up-votes. So, the applause rate is based on the number of "likes" each post gets.
- Relative Engagement Rates = So, you have all these engagement metrics, but what do those numbers even mean? How can you compare the conversation rate on Facebook with the conversation rate on Instagram? This is where the relative rates come in, think of it as the average number of conversations happening per post, per follower (fan, encircle, etc.).
Website Metrics
- Visits vs. unique visits = Visits count each time a person visits your site or page, regardless of whether or not they have visited before. Uniques count each person only once.
- Bounce rate = The percentage of people who land on your page and immediately leave, without viewing any other pages.rate at which people leave your site after viewing only one page.
- Exit rate = The percentage of people who leave your site from a given page. It’s possible these people have browsed other pages of your site before exiting.
- Time on site = a measure in minutes and seconds of how long a visitor stays on your site before exiting.
- Audience growth rate = a comparison of your audience today to your audience yesterday, last week, last month, etc.
- Average engagement rate = individual post engagement compared to overall followers.
- Response rates = These can be measured in two ways, either as the speed with which you respond to comments and replies on social media, or how quickly your marketing or sales department follows up with leads from social.
- Inbound links = the number of sites linking back to your website or pages
- Funnels = The paths that visitors take toward converting/getting to your website.
- Conversions = the number of people who achieved a desired result. This could be paying for a product, signing up for a trial, completing a form, or any other goal you’ve set up for your campaign.
What’s your experience with the social media metrics definitions discussed? Join the discussion and leave your comments below.
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Sources:
- BufferApp blog, "Which Stats Matter: The Definitive Guide to Tracking Social Media Metrics"
- The Moz Blog, "Social Engagement Metrics That Matter - Measuring, Tracking, and Reporting FTW"
