12 key performance indicators in social networks
When I say “social media engagement” metrics, what comes to mind?
Most likely, it will be likes, comments and posts or indicators in social networks.
While these are certainly high-level indicators of engagement with your content and (presumably) the effectiveness of your social media efforts, they’re far from the only metrics you should consider.
This section will help you understand the full range of metrics available to evaluate your content and social media marketing, the meaning and importance of each, and how to use and improve them.
Not many people need to track all of these metrics, so choose the combination that gives you the most valuable information.
1. Coverage
What is Coverage?
Reach is the total number of unique accounts that have been published on a social network. It can also measure the number of unique users that appear on a page / profile, campaign, post type (eg video or image) or any other segment.
How to track coverage
Reach tracking is platform-specific, and not all platforms (or account types within a platform) will display this metric. Here’s how you can find reach on some of the most popular social networks.
At the post level, Facebook displays a reach indicator at the end of each post on your Page’s main page. This is visible only to those who are logged into the account associated with the page.
Clicking on the “Reach (People)” number will open “Post Details” with tons of other metrics for that post.
You can also view the number of people your message has reached in the Insights tab of the page by selecting Messages from the left menu on your desktop.
In the Facebook Pages smartphone app, Insights only displays aggregated metrics for the entire page.
The Posts section of the Insights desktop lists all published posts in reverse chronological order, with reach shown for both regular and paid versions of the post (if the post received paid promotion).
At the page level, you can see the total reach of all messages from the page for the selected time period in the Insights tab (in the Overview section on the desktop).
On desktop, clicking on the Reach map will take you to a graph showing page reach over time, broken down by organic and paid.
Twitter does not provide reach metrics for organic tweets.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Visitors. The default view shows the total number of views of your business page for the last 15 days. Use it drop-down menu to change the view to Unique Visitors, which is equivalent to your page reach.
In the smartphone application, go to the profile page and then in the upper right panel Statistics on behalf of your profile.
For each post on Instagram, reach statistics are displayed when you click on See statistics under the post.
Hover over Analytics in the upper-left corner and select “People You Reach” from the drop-down menu. The graph shows the number of viewers of pins from your profile each day for the selected time period. This is your reach. Your reach is also broken down into four different demographics.
Pinterest does not display a reach rate for individual posts.
How to increase reach
The first thing to decide is whether increasing your reach is a goal for your goals. Reaching more people is not always the most important goal.
Increasing reach is usually useful in two cases:
- Brand awareness campaigns.
- Campaigns in which you study a potential market.
For social media campaigns, the fastest ways to increase reach are usually:
- Budget increase.
- Extension of orientation.
Increasing reach in organic social media feed is more difficult, but can be achieved:
- Use your audience. Ask your current audience to share your posts with their followers.
- Develop creative and relatable content that your audience will want to share with others.
- Encourage subscription to your page, channel or content.
- Create posts that drive engagement – a key metric that gets social networks to show your posts to more people. On Facebook, creating feedback and engaging in communication around messages is an effective way to increase reach.
2. Impression
What are your impressions?
The impression occurs every time a message appears in the user’s feed. Depending on the network, the viewer may or may not need to actually view the message to record an impression.
How to track impressions
How impressions are tracked depends (indicators in social networks) on the platform you use. Here’s how to find impressions for some of the most popular social networks.
Only impressions are provided for paid promotional posts. There is no impression metric for organic posts.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select Analytics from the drop-down menu.
By default, the total number of views of your profile for the last 28 days is displayed. To view impressions for individual tweets, click on the Tweets tab at the top.
Your tweets are displayed in reverse chronological order. You can sort by main tweets, tweets and replies (including any tweets with comments you made on one of your original tweets), and promoted (tweets with paid promotions).
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Visitors. The default view shows the total number of views of your business page for the last 15 days. This is the equivalent of impressions for your page. You can change the date range.
To view impressions for individual posts on your business page, select Updates from the Analytics tab at the top. The default view shows a graph of the total number of impressions for posts on your page, day by day for the last 15 days.
Above are the metrics, including impressions, for each post on your page (called “updates” on LinkedIn).
Go to your profile page, then click the graphic in the top bar to the right of your profile name.
The Activity tab displays a summary of all activity on your profile. Scroll down to the Discover section to see impressions from the last seven days. You cannot change the time range for this report.
Impressions are not displayed for individual messages.
Snapchat
Analytics are only available to select Snapchat Creators with a large number of subscribers.
Hover over Analytics in the upper-left corner and select Overview from the drop-down menu.
The leftmost of the three graphs shows the average daily impressions and actual day-to-day impressions for your profile over the last 30 days. The rightmost graph displays both of these metrics for website impressions related to your profile. Below you’ll find metrics, including impressions, for the five most popular posts on your profile over the past 30 days.
For more detailed information about the findings from your profile or your profile’s associated website, hover over the Analytics tab at the top and select Profile or Website from the drop-down menu.
To view impressions for any individual pin on your profile, hover over your profile avatar in the top right corner and select “My Profile” from the drop-down menu. On the pin you want to rate, click the graph icon below the thumbnail. The number after “your Pin code appeared …” is the number of impressions for that pin code.
How to improve impressions
Want more impressions. This KPI is difficult to improve because you have little control over what affects it. As a general rule, whatever you do to increase reach should also increase impressions (see previous section).
3. Shares / Retweets
What are shares and retweets?
A social post is any time a user intentionally shares one of your posts with their audience. A retweet is what is called a share on Twitter.
How to track shares and retweets
How stocks are tracked depends on the platform you use. Here’s how to find shares or retweets for some of the most popular social networks.
You can see the total number of shares at the bottom of any post.
To see all metrics for a shared resource, go to your page’s profile and click the Insights tab. Then click on “Messages” in the left navigation menu.
To see the total resources for each post, click the down arrow after “Reactions, Comments and Shares” (which are combined in the default view) and select “Reactions / Comments / Shares” from the drop-down menu.
Engagement metrics will now be broken down into these three types for each post. The graph and the number in the reactions are the number of shares for each message.
You can see the number of retweets on any of your tweets. In your profile at the bottom of every tweet.
To view all retweet metrics, click on your profile picture in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Then click on Tweets at the top of the navigation.
In Twitter analytics, retweets are combined with all other actions in the overview. To see the number of shares for an individual tweet, click “View Tweet Activity” in this list of tweets. There, all engagement types, including retweets, are listed separately with their metrics for that tweet.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the Page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. Now, above the graph, click on “Impressions” and select “General” from the drop-down menu.
The graph displays the total number of updates (posts) on any page, day by day, for the selected time period (the last 15 days by default). The table below shows the metrics for each update, but the total resources are combined into “tasks”
Instagram does not provide any share metrics.
Hover over Analytics in the upper-left corner and select Overview from the drop-down menu. On Pinterest, shares are known as “pins”.
You can see the number of findings by board or by individual findings using the top navigation menu on the analytics page. In the “boards” tab, each board shows the total number of pins made from that board, and in the “pins” tab, the graph can be clicked to see the number of “saves” for each pin.
How to improve shares / retweets
The best way to improve the number of shares or retweets, messages, etc. share content that is publicly available. In other words, messages that will make your audience feel highly motivated to share.
According to social metrics research by Buzzsumo, posts that get a lot of shares have at least one of the following characteristics:
- Have at least one image
- To cause awe, laughter or fun
- List or infographic
- Trusted Appearance (including Trusted Source)
- shared by at least one recommender
The New York Times commissioned a study that found the following psychological reasons behind posting on social media:
- Give valuable and interesting content to your friends
- Define yourself for others
- Grow and nurture relationships
- Self-realization (to feel more involved in the world)
- Encouragement causes and excites
To be useful, your messages and content must still be related to your business goals. The trick is to make it so your audience will want to share.
4. Likes / Reactions / Favorites
What are likes / reactions / favorites?
Likes, reactions, and favorites are the names given (depending on the network) to the simplest, one-click user actions with a social media post. They are generally a simple way to indicate approval or interest in what has been posted.
How to track likes / reactions / favorites
Here’s how you can track likes, reactions, or favorites on several of the most popular social networks:
A few years ago, Facebook changed from offering post “likes” to a series of “reactions” – “like”, “love”, “haha”, “wow”, “sad” and “angry”.
You must be signed in to the account that is associated with the business page to see most of the metrics for that account. However, any user can see the number of reactions to any page post in their news feed, both on a desktop computer and in the smartphone application.
To get more detailed reaction metrics, sign in to the account associated with the business page and go to that page. Select Insights from the top navigation menu, then “Posts” from the left navigation menu.
To see the number of reactions for each post individually, click the down arrow after “Reactions, Comments and Shares” (which are combined in the default view) and select “Reactions / Comments / Shares” from the drop-down menu.
Engagement metrics will now be broken down into these three types for each post. The graph and number in dark purple is the number of reactions for each post.
If you click on a message title in this list, the Message Details popup will show you the number of reactions for each type of reaction.
You can see the number of favorites on any of your tweets in your profile at the bottom of each tweet.
To view all selected metrics, click on your profile picture in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Then click on Tweets at the top of the navigation.
In Twitter analytics, favorites are combined with all other tasks in the overview. To see the number of shares for an individual tweet, click “View tweet activity” in the list of that tweet. There, all engagement types, including favorites, are listed separately with their metrics for that tweet.
NOTE. Twitter analytics still use the old “likes” notation for favorites.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. Click Show above the chart and select Like. Now the graph shows the number of likes on the page. Notifications (updates) day by day during the selected time period (by default the last 15 days).
Below the graph is a list of all recent updates. If you click on the title of a message in this list, it will open and you will see the number of likes at the bottom of the message.
Instagram does not provide any share metrics.
Pinterest doesn’t have the equivalent of a like or a favorite.
How to improve likes / reactions / favorites
Likes, reactions, and favorites have the lowest barrier of all social engagements. That is, it takes little effort to give them, and therefore they are often given without much thought.
Therefore, the main way to increase the number of such tasks is to pay attention to what types of content both you and your competitors receive the most likes, and try to create more posts in a similar way.
5. Comments / Answers
What are comments and responses?
Comments and replies are responses to messages from other users, usually appearing with and below the message.
How to track comments or replies
Here’s how you can track comments or replies on a few of the most popular social networks:
Any user can see the number of comments on any Page post in their news feed, both on the desktop and in the smartphone app. It appears at the bottom of any post on the page.
To view all comment metrics for a Page you administer, go to your Page Profile and click the Insights tab. Then click on “Messages” in the left navigation menu.
To see the number of comments on each post individually, you must click on the down arrow after “Reactions, Comments and Shares” (which are combined in the default view) and select “Reactions / Comments / Shares” from the drop-down menu.
Engagement metrics will now be broken down into these three types for each post. The graph and number in pink is the number of shares for each post.
You can see the number of comments on any of your tweets. In your profile at the bottom of every tweet.
To view all response metrics, click on your profile picture in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Then click on Tweets at the top of the navigation.
In Twitter analytics, responses are combined with all other tasks in the review. To see the number of replies for an individual tweet, click View Tweet Activity in that tweet’s list. There, all engagement types, including replies, are listed separately with their metrics for that tweet.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. Above the graph, click “Views” and select “Comments”. The graph now shows the number of comments per page. Notifications (updates) day by day during the selected time period (by default the last 15 days).
Below the graph, you’ll find a list of your Page’s messages (“updates” in LinkedIn). The Social Actions metric includes comments on each post, but unfortunately, comments cannot be separated from other social actions such as commenting or sharing.
However, if you click on the title of a message in this list, it will open and you will see the number of comments at the bottom of the message.
Instagram does not provide aggregated comment metrics for accounts. If you click on an individual entry, you will see the number of comments on that entry.
Pinterest does not provide profile-level metrics for comments. Click on any individual icon, then click the Comments tab on it to see how many comments are left.
Tracking all your shares, reactions / comments on different social networks manually takes a lot of time. You can get a bird’s-eye view of your social media performance by using third-party analytics tools like SEMrush Social Media Tracker and Hootsuite. Additionally, these tools can give you the ability to benchmark your performance against your competitors.
How to improve comments / answers
Comments and replies are most common on messages that:
- They express a strong opinion
- Evoke the emotions of users
- They make people think
If you mostly post links to external content, chances are you’ll get few comments. Even when posting a link, try to ask a valid question or comment on the general content.
6. Click on links
What are link clicks?
A link occurs when someone clicks on an external link in a social media post.
How to track clicks on links
Link clicks are the first of our social media metrics that can be tracked with your own site analytics. In Google Analytics, go to Acquisitions > All Traffic > Channels and click on “Social” in the Default Channel Group. Here, “Sessions” are roughly equivalent to click traffic from each social network.
There is also a Social section under Acquisition where you can get even more information about your social media traffic.
Here’s how you can track clicks on links on several of the most popular social networks:
To view all click metrics for a Page you administer, go to your Page Profile and click the Insights tab. Then click on “Messages” in the left navigation menu.
Facebook does not provide aggregate link click rates for regular Page posts. In the list of recent posts on the Insight Posts tab, you can see the number of link clicks for each post. Clicks are displayed as a blue bar above the engagement bar with the corresponding number of clicks for that message.
To view all click metrics, click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Then click on Tweets at the top of the navigation.
Twitter Analytics does not provide aggregated click data for an account. To see the number of link clicks for an individual tweet, click View Tweet Activity in that tweet’s list. There, all engagement types, including link clicks, are listed separately with their metrics for that tweet.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. Above the chart, click Impressions and select Clicks. The graph now shows clicks on posts (updates) of your page day by day during the selected time period (the default view is the last 15 days).
Below the graph is a list of all recent updates, including a click-through rate for each.
Instagram does not provide click metrics, as external links are prohibited in Instagram posts. You can have one clickable link in your account profile. If you want to track traffic from it if it links to a page on your own site, I recommend creating a link with a custom UTM tag and then running it through a link shortener (like bit.ly) before publishing.
Hover over Analytics in the upper left corner and select Profile. At the top of the navigation on the profile analysis page, click Clicks.
The graph shows the total number of clicks leading to traffic to the website associated with the profile, day by day, for the selected date range. Below the graph, you can see click metrics for the most popular pins and most popular boards over the past 30 days.
To view all findings and sort by click to find your findings ranking by conversions, select a timeframe and click the Export Data button.
How to improve link clicks
First, include clickable links in your posts (where appropriate)! Even if you don’t have a specific piece of content in your post, you can include a link to some related content on your site that your subscribers will find useful.
Also, don’t be afraid to share your related content repeatedly; just be careful how you place your promotions.
On a network like Twitter, where posts have a very short lifespan and (unless they go viral) are likely not seen by most of your followers, you can repost a little more often. On Facebook, where an algorithm can pull up almost any of your recent posts at any time, and where posts are recycled in news feeds if they continue to gain attention, you need to be a little more conservative.
Draw attention to the link in your posts by placing it in your call-to-action statement and perhaps pointing to it with emojis or custom text (>>>).
Use Open Graph (OG) tags on your site’s topic pages to make the related image on social media attractive.
Use Twitter cards so that when people share a link to your comment on Twitter, the featured image and title of your post will be prominently displayed.
7. The most popular content
What is popular content?
Popular content is content from a network profile that attracts users the most. As a rule, it is calculated using a score from several engagement indicators combined. In some cases, the network may provide a list of “best” or “most popular” posts without disclosing how it is ranked.
How to track popular content
Here’s how to track your most popular content on several of the most popular social networks:
Facebook does not provide a list of “top posts” in its online Insights feature, nor does it allow you to sort posts by engagement metrics. However, you can upload your post metrics to a spreadsheet and then sort them by one of the engagement columns.
To view download metrics for a Page you administer, sign in to your associated account, go to your Page profile, and click the Insights tab. On the Overview tab, click the Export Data button. Select “Post Data” as the data type and “Post Engagement” as the layout. Click the “Export data” button.
Twiter
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select Google Analytics from the drop-down menu. Then click on Tweets at the top of the navigation.
By clicking on “Top Tweets” below the graph, you will see your most active tweets for the selected time period. Click the Export Data button to download the metrics into a spreadsheet where you can sort the data by total volume, engagement level, or individual engagements such as likes or retweets.
Click on your profile avatar in the upper right corner and select your company page from the drop-down menu. (You must be listed as an administrator for the page.)
On the Analytics tab at the top, select Updates. Above the graph, click “Impressions” and select “% of social activity”.
Below the graph is a list of all recent updates, with “social action” and “engagement rate” among the metrics. To sort updates by one of these metrics to find the most popular updates, click the Export Report button and download to a spreadsheet.
Instagram does not provide top lists for business profiles.
To view the most saved pins on your business profile, sign in to your Pinterest business profile. Hover over Analytics in the upper left corner and select Profile. At the top of the navigation on the profile analysis page, click Save.
Below the graph you can see the most saved conclusions and boards that had the most saved conclusions in the last 30 days.
To view all findings and sort them by “saved” value, select the most appropriate period, then click the “Export Data” button.
How to improve the most popular content
Since the most popular content really has more rank than metric, you can’t “improve” it. But you should keep an eye on your most popular posts to see which posts and content engage your audience the best.
8. Social traffic
What’s new besides regular visitors?
New users are users who access your website for the first time on a specific device.
As mentioned, Google uses customer IDs to track users. If you use a mobile phone to access a website and then use your desktop to visit the same website again (but the first time on a desktop) – Google considers this action as two new visitors.
Google is getting smarter. When you sign in to Google Chrome using two different devices, it will only record the first device as a new visitor and the second device as a returning visitor.
Regular visitors are those who have previously visited your site. Google identifies new users for two years. If you visit the website again within a two-year period, you are considered a returning visitor, and if you visit the website again more than two years later, you will again be considered a new visitor.
This indicator is presented in the form of a pie chart that compares the ratio between them.
How to track new and returning visitors
Find this data under Audience > Behavior > New and Returning.
You will see a table comparing the behavior of new and returning visitors with some of the previously discussed metrics such as bounce rate, number of pages / session and average session duration.
You can check for new users under Purchase > Overview. In the Acquisition tab, you will also be able to see the source / environment of the traffic, as well as the source of referrals.
If your rate of repeat visitors is higher than that of new users, it can be a sign that you have a loyal group of subscribers. The opposite situation shows that you have work to do to keep people coming back again.
How to optimize / improve new and regular visitors
The “New and returning visitors” graph can show the results of the campaigns you used to promote your site.
A few examples:
- Display advertising targets new (relevant) users, so if the campaign was successful, expect an increase in new users (slightly more than social, depending on the advertising budget).
- Organic search results in an even distribution.
- Email marketing from your CRM should lead to more traffic. If this is a new prospect list, expect more new visitors.
- Direct traffic is counted when people enter your site’s URL in their browser or pull it from their bookmarked sites – this will show mostly returning users.
You can segment your channels according to these traffic sources.
It is important to correlate these measurements with other metrics, such as goal achievement.
If your regular visitors are converting more than new visitors, consider targeting strategies for this group.
Or, if your repeat visitors have a higher bounce rate, there might be something wrong with your content or user interface.
9. Conversions / Leads / Purchases
What are social conversions, leads and purchases?
A social conversion is any action by a social network user that leads to a desired action associated with a specific goal. A social lead is contact information from a potential customer for your business obtained through social mail. A purchase is the completion of a transaction for the purchase of a service product created in a social network.
For simplicity, I will refer to “conversions” in the rest of this section, as Leads and Purchases are both types of conversions. Of course, a conversion can be other things, such as downloading a resource, filling out a contact form, registering for a course or event, etc.
How to track conversions on social networks
A complete guide to tracking and improving conversions would be a book in itself, so I’ll just cover the basics here.
Conversions are usually tracked using your site’s analytics, although with paid campaigns on some social networks, certain conversions can be tracked using social network analytics if the network allows you to install a tracking pixel on your site.
The Conversions section of Google Analytics is quite complex and not intuitive, so in this guide I will focus on simpler tracking using other parts of GA.
The most important step in tracking conversions with Google Analytics is setting up goals. A goal is the impact you want a website visitor to have in a certain way. A goal conversion occurs whenever a visitor reaches a goal.
Goals are created in the Admin section of Google Analytics under the Insights column. Click on Goals, then the New Goal button. The Target Setup Wizard guides you through setting up your target. It is very important to give the Goal a name that clearly identifies it, as you will be implementing and tracking it under that name in Google Analytics.
Once your goal is created, you can see it in many different reports in Google Analytics. For example, here is the Conversions section of the Channels report in the Acquisitions section.
Pay attention to the drop-down list at the top. Use this to select the specific target you want to view.
By setting the goals correctly, you can track the source of conversions on your site not only for social network referrals, but also for any other type of traffic.
How to improve conversions
As with conversion tracking, conversion optimization is a science in itself and beyond the scope of this guide. There are many great books, blog posts, and courses on your site that can teach you how to increase conversions.
10. Optimal days / time for participation
What is optimal interaction time?
When it comes to social media engagement, not all days or times are equal. In most cases, you’ll get the most bang for your buck from your social media posts on weekdays and other times when most of your audience is online and on social media.
Caveat: I am very suspicious of the value of research that purports to show the best days or times to post on social media. While such research can be useful for a general understanding of the most active times on different networks, ultimately you need to compile your own statistics for your unique audience.
Automated time post. Some postal services try to automatically determine the best time to post on social networks. Some examples are SEMrush’s Social Media Poster and Hootsuite’s automated scheduling.
Find your best posting time. Use analytics for each of your social networks to analyze when your audience is most active. Here’s how to do it on networks that provide this information:
On the Insights tab of your business page, go to Messages in the left navigation menu. The chart and graph at the top shows the days and times when the most fans of your page are online.
Twitter Analytics doesn’t provide handy day-of-the-week and time-of-day graphs like Facebook does, but the Tweets tab lets you later see when your tweeting activity peaks and troughs. Look for patterns of days that seem more active.
For better analysis, try Followerwonk. On the “Analysis” tab, enter your Twitter handle and select “analyze your followers”. After generating the report, you can find a graph of the hours when your subscribers are most active.
Click the chart icon in the upper right corner to go to analytics. Click on “Audience” and go to the “Subscribers” section. Here you will see simple graphs of the activity of your followers by day of the week and hour of the day.
Використання Google Analytics
Go to Acquisitions > Social > Network Referrals. Set a time frame that is sufficient to obtain sufficient results. (I recommend three months.) Set the schedule to “Day.” Hover over the chart to see which days peaks and troughs typically occur. You can click on any of the listed social networks that have enough sessions and do the same to get a breakdown by day of the week for those networks.
11. Subscribers
Who are the followers?
Social media subscribers are social accounts that somehow subscribe to your page / profile and its messages. Typically, these are the users who are most likely to receive your content organically.
How to track followers
Here’s how you can track followers on some of the most popular social networks:
In Facebook, the main followers of a page are traditionally called “fans”. These are users who at some point clicked the “I like” button on your page. Users can also “follow” a page, which is a way to follow a page without registering as a fan. However, in Facebook Insights, fans and followers are combined simply into “followers”.
Go to the page and go to the “Insights” tab, then “Followers” on the left side of the navigation. There you will see a series of charts showing your follower activity:
- Total followers of the page
- Net Followers (shows followers gained and lost over time)
- Where were your page followers (shows what users did when they became followers)
To see your Twitter growth over time, click on your account avatar in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Now click on the Audiences tab.
By default, the Audiences tab displays “your subscribers”. At the top you will see a graph of your number subscribers every day for the last 30 days. For a more detailed view of your followers, try a third-party tool like twittercounter.com.
Go to your avatar page. Click on Analytics and select Subscribers from the drop-down menu.
Above the graph, you’ll find the total number of followers for your page, the number of organic subscribers received in the last 30 days, and the number of acquired followers (received as a result of paid promotions). The graph shows the number of subscribers received per day for the specified time period. You can export the report to a spreadsheet for more in-depth analysis.
In your business account profile, click the chart icon in the top right corner to access your analytics. Choose an audience. This tab shows your total number of followers to date and the number of followers you have gained in this 7-day period compared to the previous 7 days.
Sign in to your Pinterest business profile. Hover over Google Analytics in the top left corner and select People You Work With. Change the “All Audiences” button to “Your subscribers”. The graph shows how many of your followers viewed and interacted with your contacts on a daily basis during the selected time period. Pinterest does not display growth metrics subscribers
Using third-party analytics tools like Hootsuite or SEMrush Social Media Tracker is a convenient way to track the growth of your followers on different social networks simultaneously.
How to increase followers
The best way to increase your followers is to be cool! Create content that people want to share with others. Engage with your followers regularly, aiming to turn them into evangelists for your brand and page.
12. Audience demographics
What are audience demographics?
Audience demographics are a set of metrics that describe various characteristics of your audience – such as location, age, gender, income, lifestyle, and more. These ideas will help you create more accurate content and social posts.
How to track audience demographics
Here’s how you can track subscribers on some of the most popular social networks:
Go to your page and go to the “Insights” tab, then “People” in the navigation bar.
At the top of the People tab are four tabs that describe the different segments of your audience:
- Your fans (people who liked your page)
- Your followers (people who follow the content of your page)
- People Reached (people who have seen any of your content, whether they are followers or not)
- People involved (anyone who is connected in some way to your content)
The tab displays the following indicators for each segment:
- The percentage of people in this segment in each age group, by men and women
- The countries in which these people live
- Cities where these people live
- The languages these people speak
To get more detailed demographics, create a Facebook ad account (if you don’t already have one) and add the Facebook pixel to your site. The pixel will start collecting data from Facebook users who visit your site. Audience reports in Facebook Ads Manager provide an impressive amount of information about your site visitors. You don’t need to buy Facebook ads to use this feature.
Click on the account avatar in the upper right corner and select “Analytics” from the drop-down menu. Now click on the Audiences tab.
You can view data for three different audiences:
- Your followers (default view)
- All Twitter users
- Your organic audience (people who have engaged with your tweets or follow you)
For each audience, you can see their most popular interests, gender ratio, household income, shopping styles, marital status, property ownership and renters, as well as their most popular wireless carriers. The Your Followers segment offers even more demographic categories.
Go to your avatar page. Click on Analytics and select Subscribers from the drop-down menu.
Below the graph, you’ll see some basic demographics for your Page’s subscribers. Click “Geography” to jump to five other categories: job title, seniority, industry, company size, and employment status.
In your business account profile, click the chart icon in the top right corner to access your analytics. Choose an audience. This tab displays several basic demographics about your followers, including gender, age, top locations, and the time of day and days of the week they are most active.
Hover over Analytics in the top left corner and select People You Work With. Below the graph you can see the countries, metro locations, languages and gender of your audience.
How to use audience demographics
Data-driven audience demographics can be the most effective way to create personas to inform your content and social media marketing strategies. They can also help you know if you’ve really reached your target audience.
If your demographics don’t match what you think are the most likely prospects for your business, then it’s time to work on new creative and content strategies that will appeal more to the audience you’re missing out on. Data can also awaken you to new possibilities.
