You’re posting content and building a following through your organic social media strategies, but how do you know if it’s really working?
To measure social media campaign success, most marketers track metrics like follower growth, engagement (likes, comments, shares), reach, and website traffic. They also use tools like Google Analytics with UTM tracking to tie social efforts to conversions and measure ROI.
However, the key is to track the right metrics based on your goal. Measuring campaign success becomes much simpler once you know what to look for.
Setting Social Media Marketing Campaign Goals and KPIs
Before looking at what important organic social media campaign metricsn you should track: Are you trying to raise brand awareness, boost engagement, or drive conversions? Your goals will determine the metrics you should focus on.
A useful way our social media experts structure these social media goals is by using SMART criteria: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. For example:
Increase Instagram engagement by 15% in the next quarter through weekly polls and interactive stories.
Drive 50 new leads through organic LinkedIn posts in the next two months by sharing case studies and client success stories.
Setting clear goals helps you determine which key performance indicators (KPIs) to monitor, which is why we have broken down our organic social metrics into Awareness/Acquisition, Engagement, Conversion, and Retention metrics.
Key Metrics to Measure Social Media Campaign Success
Awareness/ Acquisition Metrics
If your goal is to grow your brand’s presence on social channels, you’ll need to focus on metrics that show how well your social media content is reaching new people and attracting followers.
These acquisition and awareness metrics help you understand how many people are seeing your posts, visiting your site, and joining your audience.
Follower growth rate
This is all about how fast your audience is growing. To figure it out, take the number of new followers and divide it by your total followers, then multiply by 100.
This gives you a percentage that shows how well your content is attracting your target audience over time. Keeping an eye on this helps you see if your strategy is pulling in more followers or if it needs a tweak.
Audience size
Audience size is basically how many people are following you on social media. It’s tempting to chase big numbers, but the real goal is attracting followers who actually care about your content.
Sure, it’s nice to see your follower count climb, but make sure those people are sticking around for more than just a click. You can easily track this by looking at your follower count on each platform.
Reach
Reach tells you how many unique people have seen your post. It’s perfect for understanding how far your content is spreading.
You can check this number in each platform’s built-in analytics tools like Instagram Insights or Facebook Insights. If your reach is high, it means your content is getting in front of a lot of people, which is great news if you're trying to build brand awareness.
Impressions
Impressions are quite different from reach: they show how many times your content has been shown, even if the same person saw it multiple times.
This is helpful because the more impressions you get, the more your content stays at the top of your target audience's mind. You’ll find this data in the same place as your reach stats.
Website Traffic
You should track this to know how many people are clicking through from your social media profiles to your website. Google Analytics is a useful tool for tracking this, as you can set up UTM parameters to follow the specific links users click on.
It’s a great way to see how your social content is directly driving traffic to your website and impacting your goals.
Engagement Metrics
Now that you’ve got people’s attention, engagement metrics help you figure out how well your content is connecting with them.
Post Engagement Rate
This shows the percentage of your followers who are interacting with your content. It could be a like, a comment, a share, or any kind of reaction.
To calculate this, take all the engagements (likes, comments, shares) and divide it by the number of followers, then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. The higher this number, the more your audience is connecting with what you’re putting out there.
Likes, Comments, Shares, Retweets, and Reactions
These are your basic engagement signals. When people like, comment on, or share your posts, it means they care enough to interact. These numbers are easy to find in your platform's analytics, but what matters is understanding the context.
Are the comments positive? Are people tagging others in your posts? The more they interact, the stronger your content is resonating.
Brand Mentions
Brand mentions are when people talk about your brand directly on social media, either by tagging you or mentioning your name. You can track this with social listening tools or even manually by looking at notifications. The more mentions you get, the more your brand is becoming a part of conversations.
Audience Sentiment
This goes hand in hand with brand mentions, but it focuses on the tone of the conversation. Are people talking about your brand in a positive light, or are they complaining?
Audience sentiment helps you get a feel for how your followers really feel about your content or products. Tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social can help you analyse this at scale, but even checking comments and replies can give you a good sense of where things stand.
Video Views
Video content is huge on social media, and video views let you know how many people are hitting play on your clips. You can track this directly in each platform’s analytics. If video is a big part of your strategy, this metric is key to understanding how well your videos are catching people’s interest.
Video Completion Rate
While views are great, the real question is how many people are watching your video all the way through. This metric shows the percentage of viewers who stuck around until the end. If your completion rate is low, it might be a sign that your videos need to be shorter or more engaging right from the start.
Share of Voice (SOV)
This is about how much of the conversation your brand is owning compared to competitors. Think of it like market share, but for attention on social media. If people are talking more about you than about other brands, your share of voice is higher.
Tools like Brandwatch or Sprout Social can help you measure this, giving you a sense of how dominant your brand is in your niche.
Conversion Metrics
Now, let’s talk about conversions, the ultimate sign that your social media efforts are paying off by driving sales, sign-ups, or any other action.
Conversions
This is the raw number of actions people take as a result of your social media campaigns—think of it as counting how many sign-ups, purchases, or downloads you’ve generated.
Conversions can be tracked through tools like Google Analytics or built-in social media analytics that track link clicks and actions taken after someone visits your site. The more conversions, the better your posts are at driving results.
Conversion Rate
Your conversion rate tells you the percentage of people who take action after seeing your content. Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or filling out a form, this metric is important to measuring the success of your social media activity.
To calculate it, divide the number of conversions by the total number of clicks or visits from your social posts, then multiply by 100. A higher conversion rate means your content is hitting the mark and leading people to take action.
Social Commerce Metrics
For e-commerce brands, social commerce metrics are huge. They track the number of sales made directly through social media platforms like Instagram Shopping or Facebook Shops.
Platforms like Instagram make it easy for customers to buy directly from your posts, so you can measure exactly how much revenue is coming straight from your social content.
Retention Metrics
Conversions are great, but keeping customers around is even better. Retention metrics show how well your social media efforts are helping to build long-term relationships with your audience.
Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)
This metric measures how happy your customers are with your brand, especially after they’ve interacted with you or made a purchase. It’s usually gathered through surveys asking something like, "How satisfied are you with your experience?"
The responses are often on a scale from 1 to 5, and you can calculate your CSAT by averaging these scores. High scores mean people are happy, while lower scores might indicate that there’s room for improvement in your customer service or social interactions.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
NPS takes things a step further by asking how likely your customers are to recommend your brand to others. This is a key indicator of customer loyalty.
Customers answer on a scale from 0 to 10, and based on their responses, they’re grouped into promoters (those who will recommend you), passives (neutral), and detractors (people who are unhappy).
You can calculate NPS by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters. A higher NPS means your customers are likely to spread the word about your brand, which is always a good thing.
Reviews
Reviews are an easy and very public way to gauge how customers feel about your brand. Whether it’s reviews on your website, Google, or social platforms, they give you valuable insight into how people perceive your products or services.
Positive reviews are a great sign of customer satisfaction, while negative ones can show you areas where you need to improve. Keep an eye on what people are saying and use this feedback to make adjustments where necessary.
Tools for Measuring Social Media Marketing Success
Measuring your organic social media success often requires a combination of both native platform analytics and third-party social media analytics tools.
Native Social Media Analytics
Each social media platform comes with its own built-in analytics tools, which provide a solid overview of how your posts are doing.
For example, Facebook Insights gives you data on reach, engagement, and audience demographics. Instagram Insights lets you track impressions, follower growth, and interactions.
Twitter Analytics is great for checking how your tweets are performing in terms of engagement and reach. LinkedIn Analytics is especially useful for B2B marketing, offering insights into impressions, clicks, and engagement, along with detailed audience demographics like job titles, industries, and company sizes.
Learn more about using social media analytics for smarter advertising
Third-Party Tools
If you're managing multiple social media platforms and want a more comprehensive look at your social media performance, third-party tools can make it easier for you.
Hootsuite and Buffer allow you to schedule posts, monitor engagement, and analyse metrics across all your social accounts from one dashboard. They also offer more detailed reporting options so you can dive deeper into your data.
Sprout Social is another great option for tracking engagement, reach, and audience sentiment across platforms. These tools can save you time and help you spot trends that you might miss if you’re only looking at each platform individually.
Tracking Social Media Marketing ROI
You can track ROI using business impact metrics like website traffic, conversions, and lead generation. With Google Analytics UTM codes, you can track exactly where your traffic is coming from.
UTM codes are small tags added to a URL that tells Google Analytics which platform, campaign, or post is responsible for the traffic. This way, you can see if a specific Facebook post or Instagram story is driving more visitors to your site and how those visitors are behaving once they arrive.
Another way is through attribution models in Google Analytics and Meta. Attribution helps you understand the entire customer journey and see how your social media fits in. For example, someone might first see your brand on Instagram, visit your site a few days later, and then make a purchase after clicking on a Google ad.
Google Analytics lets you use models like Last Interaction, First Interaction, or Multi-touch to distribute credit for the conversion across all the channels that played a role, including social media. This helps you get a clearer picture of how organic social posts contribute to the overall conversion path.
Conclusion
Measuring your organic social media success isn’t just about tracking likes and shares. It’s about understanding how your efforts are impacting your overall business goals.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the metrics or unsure of how to optimise your social channels, you don’t have to do it alone. Mira Marketing Agency specialises in creating and executing social media strategies that drive real results.
Get in touch with us today to grow your revenue through social media.