How do you really know if your likes, comments, and shares are “good enough”? It’s easy to stare at your own numbers in isolation and feel unsure. Sometimes, your social performance only makes sense when you can stack it up against businesses similar to yours.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the latest social media benchmarks across five major platforms, giving you a clear, grounded sense of where you stand and where you can grow.

I’ve used data from the following Buffer reports:

• Buffer’s best times to post on social media — which analyzed one million posts sent through Buffer
• Buffer’s Instagram benchmarks — calculated using aggregated data from over 27 million posts from 273k active Instagram accounts with over 13 billion engagements.
• Buffer’s Facebook benchmarks — calculated using aggregated data from over 52 million posts from 213k active Facebook accounts
• Buffer’s best content format on social platforms — based on an analysis of millions of social posts from multiple platforms
• Buffer’s guide to social media frequency — our data-backed recommendations on how often to post on each platform
• Buffer’s engagement rate data for eight social media platforms

⚠️ Before we get into the data: a caveat

“Good” looks different for everyone. Your brand might not need a massive audience to hit its goals. Maybe your content is highly localized, maybe you publish less often but with more depth, or maybe your audience behaves differently from industry norms — and that’s OK.  

Social media benchmarks are not here to put you under pressure. Each study pulls data from different companies, niches, and posting volumes, so treat these numbers as a helpful guide, not a commandment. Use what serves your strategy, and leave the rest behind.

What do social media industry benchmarks mean?

Social media benchmarks are a lever against which you can measure your own performance. 

Comparing your social media performance to relevant benchmarks can help you:

• Set ambitious but achievable goals
• Report a 360-degree picture to leadership
• Pinpoint areas of growth

Which social media metrics should you care about?

The X-axis is your industry. Which metrics should you look for in the Y-axis? Here are four social media marketing metrics to keep an eye on:

1. Posting times

There’s no universal right time to post on social media, but there are certain times when you might get more engagement than others. Benchmark data helps you understand the best time to post based on patterns spotted from millions of posts.

2: Post type

Many social networks today have a ton of content formats — images, stories, carousels, videos, etc. Understanding which type of post works best for which platform helps you repurpose content efficiently and prioritize the best content types for your social media calendar.

3: Posting frequency

Posting frequency is the number of times you should post on a social media platform over a certain time period. 

There’s an ideal post frequency for every network to get the most engagement, but it’s not always consistent across industries. Some niches might need to post more because their industry has a lot of competition on social media, while others might not need to be so strict with how often they post.

4: Engagement rate

Engagement rate is typically calculated as the total number of likes, comments, and shares divided by the total number of followers multiplied by 100.

Why should you care about social media engagement rate? 

The number of interactions your posts receive determines whether your target audience resonates with your social media content. The higher the engagement rate, the more your followers like your social media posts.

⚠️ More caveats

I’ve shared four key metrics here, but the benchmark data you care about can vary depending on your social media goals.

For example, if your goal is to increase your follower count, you might also want to do a competitive analysis of follower growth in your industry. If your aim is to improve brand awareness, you might also want to monitor impressions and reach.

Breaking down social media benchmarks by platform

Here at Buffer, we’re always looking for ways to help you grow on social media. The good news is that we have plenty of information (and some seriously smart people) to provide data-driven insights that will help get you there. 

I’ve collated some of the information for you to break down the social media benchmarks for five popular social media sites.

Social media benchmarks at a glance

Social media benchmarks for Facebook

Best time to post on Facebook

Sorry, night owls; the best time to post on Facebook is 5 a.m. on Monday, according to Buffer’s analysis of more than a million posts.

Best type of post on Facebook

Video may have killed the radio star, but according to our research, pictures get the most engagement on Facebook, earning 35% more engagement than text posts and nearly 44% more than videos.

Median number of posts (monthly) on Facebook

Our Facebook benchmarks data pegs the median Facebook posting frequency at 35 posts per month, so 1-2 posts per day.

Median engagement rate on Facebook

According to Buffer’s analysis of 52 million Facebook posts across 213k accounts, the median Facebook engagement rate is 3.6%. But who wants to be average? It’s important to remember that averages only tell part of the story. The more useful insight comes when you compare your own performance to accounts of a similar size, which you can do right here.

Social media benchmarks for Instagram

The best time to post on Instagram

Buffer’s analysis of over 2 million posts found that the best time to post on Instagram is generally 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. Fridays at 3 p.m. took the top spot. 

The best type of post on Instagram

Our research of over 2 million Instagram posts found that the best content format for maximum reach is Instagram Reels.

Median number of posts (monthly) on Instagram

The average Instagram posting frequency on Instagram is 17 posts per month, so a post round about every second day.

Median engagement rate on Instagram 

The median engagement rate on Instagram is 4.3%. Again, I recommend filtering the data (nifty, right?) to show accounts with a similar size to yours for a more accurate comparison of your content performance. For example, accounts with less than 1k followers averaged 5% engagement, while those with 10–50k followers got a 3.7% engagement rate. 

Social media benchmarks for TikTok

The best time to post on TikTok

According to our data, the best time to post on TikTok is Sunday at 8 p.m. Generally speaking, views tend to pick up later in the day, with peak time slots at 1 p.m. or later.

The best type of post on TikTok

No surprises here. Based on Buffer’s analysis of over 1 million posts, videos on TikTok get the most views.

Median number of posts (monthly) on TikTok

RivalIQ’s 2025 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report found that the median number of posts across all industries is 1.97 per week, or 8–9 per month. In the graph below, you can also see how your posting cadence stacks up against your industry norm.

Interestingly, our study revealed some interesting findings related to TikTok posting frequency. Median views per post stay roughly flat (~500 views) regardless of posting frequency — meaning posting more doesn’t necessarily mean more views, but we found that it does increase your chances of a viral post.

The median number of posts associated with the best efficiency gain is 8–20 posts per month (2–5 per week). This range yields the greatest improvement in performance without diminishing returns — offering the biggest lift in potential views and viral opportunities while maintaining stable median views.

Median engagement rate on TikTok

Our most recent engagement study found an average TikTok engagement rate of 4.86%, an increase from the 4% engagement rate the year prior.

Social media benchmarks for Twitter (now X)

The best time to post on X

Our analysis of over 1 million tweets (can we still call them that?) found that the best time to post on X is 9 a.m. on Wednesday. In general, posting mid-morning every weekday tends to yield solid engagement, as you can see on the heatmap below.

The best type of post on X

Text is still best on X. According to our 2025 data, text-only posts beat out videos, images, and links, and even images in median engagement.

Median number of posts (monthly) on X

According to RivalIQ’s 2025 Social Media Industry Benchmark Report, X users averaged 2.2 posts per week (around 9 posts a month). This is a massive decline from the average of five posts per week in 2021, suggesting people aren’t as invested in X as they once were. (Elon Musk acquired Twitter and started making some big changes in 2022.)

Median engagement rate on X

X dropped from 3.47% in January 2024 to 2.15% in January 2025, largely due to algorithm changes and platform instability.

Social media benchmarks for LinkedIn

The best time to post on LinkedIn

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the best time to post on LinkedIn is during working hours. Buffer’s analysis of 5.5 million posts found that posts that go live between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays perform best. Posts shared at 11 a.m. on Thursdays get marginally more engagement.

The best type of post on LinkedIn

LinkedIn has evolved into a creator-friendly platform complete with its own video feed, but while video still gets solid traction, it’s no longer the engagement powerhouse it was during the early 2024 surge.

As the algorithm settled and more creators embraced video, one format consistently rose to the top: PDF carousels deliver the highest median engagement on LinkedIn (by far). 

Median number of posts (monthly) on LinkedIn

Although we don’t have recent median post frequency data, Buffer’s research of over 2 million posts from 94k+ LinkedIn accounts shows that posting two to five times weekly on LinkedIn is the sweet spot for improving reach and engagement without overwhelming your schedule. 

Pro tip: LinkedIn’s posts have a longer shelf life than other social media platforms. This means your LinkedIn posts can appear in your audience’s feed for weeks after you’ve shared them, so it pays to create an intentional LinkedIn strategy. Quality > quantity, so find a frequency you can stick to. 

Median engagement rate on LinkedIn

Buffer’s analysis of millions of posts found a median LinkedIn engagement rate of 6.5%, outpacing all the other platforms we measured. This median uses data between January 2024 and January 2025. When we dug a little deeper, we saw how LinkedIn engagement jumped from 6% to 8.01% in that time period.

How to use social media benchmarks to your benefit

Now that you have some social media benchmarks data, how can you use the numbers I shared above to inform your marketing strategy? 

Here are three ways:

1. Use social media benchmarks to set goals

Social media benchmarks help you understand where you’re winning, or maybe where you’re falling short. Use social media benchmarks to guide your KPIs and make them more realistic.

2. Use social media benchmarks for reporting the true picture

At first blush, a 3% engagement rate on Twitter (now X) might seem bleak to your stakeholders. Will that lead to a good growth rate? Should you practice more retweets or increase the number of posts? But presenting that number alongside benchmark data (the median is just over 2%) can help you see the whole picture. In this case, maybe you’re not doing so badly after all. 

3. Use social media benchmarks as an aspirational vision board

If your social media metrics leave a little to be desired, let benchmark data serve as an inspiration and something to work towards by varying content type, positioning, frequency, or wherever you think improvements can be made.

⚠️  But here comes one of those caveats again 

Even benchmark data points keep shifting under the whims of algorithms, competition, and other factors out of your control. And what one study calls ‘benchmarks’ depends on its own methodology and sample size — it can differ vastly from one research report to another. Take every benchmark with a grain of salt and use it in conjunction with your past performance metrics and audience feedback.

So, how did your socials stack up against these social media benchmarks?

If you’re feeling clearer about where you stand, that’s exactly what these social media benchmarks are for. Maybe you discovered you’re posting at the right times? Maybe you spotted a few gaps or opportunities you hadn’t considered before? Either way, you now have data you can actually use.

And remember, the only numbers that matter long-term are the ones that move your goals forward.

Benchmarks give you direction; your strategy gives you momentum. Pair the two, and your social presence will be stronger and smarter going into 2026. 

More social media insights

• The Best Time to Post on Twitter/X: Based on Data from 1 Million Posts
• Replying to Comments Boosts Engagement by 5-42% on These Major Platforms
• 17 Threads Stats You Need to Know in 2026 (+ What They Mean for Your Strategy)
• The Best Time to Post on TikTok in 2026 — New Data
• What Is a Good Facebook Engagement Rate? Data From 52 Million+ Posts
• Do Posts with Links Affect Content Performance on X?

FAQ about social media benchmarks

What are social media benchmarks?

Social media benchmarks act like a compass for your strategy. They show how your posts, engagement, and posting frequency compare to similar accounts, helping you understand what “good” looks like without the guesswork. 

Why should I care about social media benchmarks?

Benchmarks help you set realistic goals, report meaningful results to your team or stakeholders, and identify areas where you can improve your social media performance — without stressing over every like or share.

Which social media metrics matter most?

Some of the key metrics to watch are engagement rate, post type, posting frequency, and posting times. These give insight into how your audience interacts with your content, which formats work best, how often to post, and when your content gets the most visibility.

What type of posts perform best on each platform?

Different platforms favor different content. Pictures perform best on Facebook, Instagram Reels get the highest reach, TikTok rewards videos, text posts win on X (Twitter), and LinkedIn sees the most engagement with carousels or PDFs.

When is the best time to post on social media?

The optimal posting times differ across platforms. On Facebook, 5 a.m. on Mondays performs well. Instagram sees the most engagement around 3 p.m. on Fridays. TikTok posts do best at 8 p.m. on Sundays. X (Twitter) favors 9 a.m. on Wednesdays, and LinkedIn engagement peaks at 11 a.m. on Thursdays. But the best time to post is when your audience is online, which you can find out in your Buffer analytics. 

What is a good engagement rate for social media?

Median engagement rates vary by platform. Facebook averages 3.6%, Instagram 4.3%, TikTok 4.86%, X (Twitter) 2.15%, and LinkedIn 6.5%. These numbers provide a helpful reference point for evaluating your own performance, but must be considered in the context of your audience size and your industry. 

How should I use social media benchmarks?

Benchmarks can guide your strategy in three main ways. They help you set realistic goals, give context when reporting performance to stakeholders, and inspire improvements in content type, posting frequency, and timing.

Are benchmarks the same for every business?

Benchmarks are guides, not rules. Your niche, audience, and goals can change what “good” looks like for your brand. Use benchmark data to inform your strategy, but always consider your own performance history and audience behavior.

“If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” 

I bet you’ve heard this one from Peter Drucker, one of the best-known thinkers and writers on the subject of management theory. And maybe that’s why you’re here: You know that growing on TikTok isn’t just about posting videos — you need to dig into the data to see what actually works.

But, if you’re anything like me, when you first open the TikTok analytics tab, it feels like staring at a spaceship dashboard. Numbers, charts, percentages … Where do you even start?

The good news is that you don’t need to measure everything; it’s more important to measure the right things based on your goals. The magic happens when you focus on the metrics that actually tell you something about your audience, your content, and your growth.

What are TikTok analytics?

TikTok analytics is the data in your TikTok account that provides insights into how your content performs on the platform. Your analytics help you understand who your audience is, what content they engage with, and when they are most active. 

When you have these numbers, you gain the knowledge to create even better content, get more eyes on it, grow your audience, and maybe even make some money. 

How to access analytics on your TikTok account

On the mobile TikTok app

1. Open the app and navigate to your TikTok profile (in the bottom right-hand corner).
2. Right below your bio, click on the TikTok Studio button.
3. Click on Analytics
4. Scroll through the tabs at the top to show your stats. 

On the desktop TikTok app

1. Visit tiktok.com/analytics.

TikTok analytics on mobile vs. desktop 

The stats you’ll see look a little different on each device. Here’s what you can expect:

Which platform should you use?

• Mobile: You want to check stats quickly, on the go, or keep tabs on trends while filming and posting content.
• Desktop: You want to dig into the numbers, export data, and plan content with more detail.

How to access TikTok analytics on Buffer

1. Open your Buffer dashboard. 
2. You can view basic analytics for each of your TikTok posts' metrics by heading to the Publish tab,
3. Select TikTok from your channels list on the left.
4. Click on the Sent tab.

The 4 main sections on your TikTok analytics dashboard

TikTok analytics are structured into four primary sections:

1. Overview
2. Content
3. Followers
4. LIVE

Note: Although the four sections remain the same, the depth and focus of the data can vary between Creator and Business TikTok accounts:

Here’s a general guide to each section and metrics:

Overview

The overview is a high-level snapshot of how your TikTok account is doing. 

• Video views: The total number of times your videos were watched in your selected time frame.
• Profile views: How many times users visited your profile, which is a good signal of interest beyond just viewing videos.
• Follower growth/loss: How many new followers versus unfollows in that period.
• Engagement counts: See your likes, comments, and shares.

🎯 How to use it

Think of the Overview as your dashboard for “how am I doing overall?” If you notice a big spike or drop here, it’s a signal to dig deeper. 

Content

This tab zooms in on how individual posts are performing. Key metrics to watch include:

• Average watch time: How long viewers stay watching your video on average. (If this is low, your hook or intro might need work.)
• Total play time: Total minutes/hours people spent watching your videos.
• Video views by section/source: Did people find your video via the For You page, via your profile, etc?
• Trending videos: The top videos with the fastest growth in views or engagement recently.

🎯 How to use it

You can use this tab to identify what kind of posts are working right now. For example, if videos with certain themes or hooks are trending, lean into them.

Followers

Here you can learn all about your audience — who they are, when they’re active, where they’re from, etc. 

• Total followers and net followers: How many people currently follow you, and how many gained/lost in your selected period.
• Demographics: Age groups, gender breakdown, top countries/cities where your followers are based.
• Most active times: What hours/days are your followers most active on TikTok?

🎯 How to use it

Use follower data to guide your content strategy and posting schedule. For example, if you see many followers in a certain city/time zone, adjust your timing accordingly. If you have a strong age/gender segment, tailor visuals/language to them.

LIVE

The LIVE tab is for when you host live-stream sessions on TikTok. It gives you data specific to those live streams so you can understand how your live audience engages.

• Total views on your live sessions: How many people watched your live broadcast?
• Unique viewers: How many individual accounts watched (even if they drop in and out).
• New followers gained during live: Useful to gauge how effective the live session was at converting viewers to followers.
• Top viewer count: The highest concurrent viewers during the live.
• Diamonds / virtual gifts: If applicable in your region, this counts how many gifts you received.

🎯 How to use it

Treat your live metrics like feedback on your real-time event. If you notice a drop-off at a certain minute, maybe the format needs tightening. If many new followers came in during the live, consider replicating the hook or format.

5 key metrics to focus on

Feeling overwhelmed by all the information available? I get it. The Analytics tab on TikTok is packed with information and can easily get lost in the data. You want to create content that people love, not stare at numbers all day. 

Here are my top five metrics and what to do with them:

1. Video views 

👀 What to look at: How many people are watching your videos?

💡 Action tip: Notice which videos get the most views and make more like them.

To find views, tap on ‘More insights’ below any of your videos > Overview or Viewers.

2. Watch time

👀 What to look at: How long viewers are sticking around for your videos. Are they watching all the way through, dropping off early, or rewatching parts?💡

💡 Action tip: If watch time is low, experiment with hooking viewers in the first 2–3 seconds, tightening edits, or making your content more engaging

To find watch time, tap on ‘More insights’ below any of your videos > Overview > Watch time.

3. Follower growth and followers per video

👀 What to look at: How your audience changes week by week.

💡 Action tip: Track patterns — what content makes people follow you? Do more of that.

To find new followers per video,tap on ‘More insights’ below any of your videos > Overview > new followers. To keep tabs on total follower growth, go to TikTok Studio > Analytics > Followers. 

4. Engagement 

👀 What to look at: Which videos people interact with most.

💡 Action tip: Pay attention to shares — they show what content people want to spread.

To find engagement data, tap on ‘More insights’ below any of your videos > check the bar of icons right below your video. You can find specific comments by going to TikTok Studio > Analytics 

5. Follower Insights

👀 What to look at:  Age, location, and when your followers are online.

💡 Action tip: Post when your audience is most active and tailor content to who they are.

To find follower insights, go to TikTok Studio > Analytics > Followers. 

How to use your TikTok analytics to level up your content strategy

Your analytics are a great place to understand what content is resonating with your audience and where you can improve.

For example, if you notice one video has a lot more shares and saves, dissect why. Does it share unique information that’s not readily available? Is it something people might want to reference later and share with their friends? What are the comments like? Can you create more content around the same topic?

When you treat your analytics as a creative feedback loop instead of a performance scorecard, you start to see patterns that help you grow faster (and smarter). 

Here’s how to make the most of your TikTok analytics.

Define your TikTok goals

Analytics are only useful if you know why you’re measuring them. 

For example: 

Are you trying to grow your community? Focus on which videos attract new followers.

Want to drive more engagement? Look closely at watch time, comments, and shares. 

See what works

Once your goals are set, you can dig into your analytics to find your best-performing content.

Look for:

• Top posts: Which videos have the most views, shares, or saves?
• Average watch time (a big one for the algo): Are people watching to the end or dropping off early?
• Engagement rate: Which posts spark conversation or get the most comments?

Pro tip: According to our latest data, videos between 3 to 10 minutes long now perform better than super short ones in terms of engagement and watch time. (That said, this advice only applies if videos of this length are relevant to your brand, context, and content.)

Understand your audience

Analytics tell you what’s working and who it’s working for. On your TikTok’s analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to see demographics like age, gender, and top territories, plus when your followers are most active. 

Pro tip: Our data shows that posting between 3 and 6 p.m. local time tends to generate the highest engagement on TikTok. Does that align with your stats? It might not, and that’s OK. The whole reason to look at your own analytics is to see what’s resonating for your specific audience. 

Spot patterns

It’s such a boost to see a video taking off, and you deserve every celebration. But often, the real optimization magic happens when you zoom out. Instead of solely focusing on individual posts, start noticing trends in your content.

• What themes, tones, or topics consistently perform well?
• Do certain posting times get better results?
• Are your strongest videos short, funny, educational, or emotional?

Also take a look at any shifts in your demographic over time. We were interested to find out that the average age of a TikTok user is increasing.

Test and learn

Now that you’ve gathered insights, it’s time to put them to work. Keep leaning into what’s performing well, and don’t be afraid to pivot away from what isn’t.

Experiment with new formats, test fresh hooks, and post at slightly different times to see how your audience responds. Remember that both TikTok’s algorithm and your audience’s preferences are constantly changing, so stay curious. Track what you test, note what works, and use those learnings to guide your next round of content. 

TikTok analytics made actionable

TikTok analytics help you understand what works, who’s watching, and how to improve your content. With this kind of information at your disposal, you’re able to make even better content and help it reach the right kinds of people. 

Of course, creating great content takes time. But planning, posting, and tracking every detail doesn’t have to be on your plate. Tools like Buffer can handle the scheduling and analytics for you, so you can focus on what really matters — making TikToks your audience loves and growing your account strategically.

More TikTok resources 

• TikTok Marketing: The Complete 2025 Guide to Form Your Strategy (For Creators and Brands)
• Top 250 TikTok Hashtags for 2025 + How to Use Them for Growth
• 14 Ways to Get More Followers on TikTok in 2025 — Tried and Tested
• The 11 Best AI Video Editors for Creators and Marketers, Tried and Tested (+ Bonus AI Tool)
• 31 TikTok Statistics to Know for 2025
• The Best Time to Post on TikTok in 2025 — New Data
• TikTok Bulletin Boards: What They Are, How They Work, and Why They Matter

FAQ

How do I see my analytics on TikTok?

Go to your profile, tap the three lines in the top right corner, select Creator tools, and then choose Analytics. You’ll find an overview of your account performance, video metrics, and follower insights. 

Pro tip: You can also access analytics directly from individual videos by tapping the three dots and choosing Analytics.

What does “Other” mean on TikTok analytics?

If you see “Other” as a traffic source, it typically includes sources that don’t fit neatly into TikTok’s main categories. It could be viewers who found your video through shared links, embeds, or external sites.

How do I see TikTok follower analytics?

Head to the Followers tab within your analytics dashboard. There, you’ll see breakdowns of your audience’s gender, top territories, and when they’re most active. This is one of the best places to refine your posting schedule and ensure your content lands when your community is online.

How do I set up analytics on TikTok?

Analytics are available to all Creator and Business accounts. If you’re using a personal account, just switch:

1. Go to your profile and tap the three lines in the top corner.
2. Tap Settings and privacy → Account → Switch to Business Account (or Creator).
3. Once switched, you’ll automatically gain access to analytics.

How do I turn analytics off on TikTok?

If you’d prefer not to track analytics, simply switch back to a personal account. Tap Settings and privacy → Account → Switch to personal account. Just note that you’ll lose access to insights and certain business tools, so only switch if you’re sure you don’t need them.

What time do TikTok analytics update?

TikTok analytics typically refresh about once a day. You might notice a delay of several hours before new performance data (like views or engagement) fully updates. For the most accurate picture, check your analytics at the same time each day and give new posts at least 24 hours before analyzing performance.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using Buffer to build a posting habit on LinkedIn. I’ve been sharing what I’m learning, posting about work and life, and trying to stay consistent. But one thing has always been missing: a simple way to see what’s working.

That’s exactly what we’re introducing today: LinkedIn Profile Analytics, now available inside Buffer.

Why we built this

Until now, LinkedIn has mostly reserved detailed analytics for company Pages. But many creators, freelancers, solopreneurs, consultants, and folks like me are building audiences directly from personal profiles. That is where the conversations happen. That is where most people are posting.

We partnered directly with LinkedIn and are proud to be an official launch partner for their new Analytics API. This new API finally makes it possible to track metrics for personal profiles, and we’re thrilled to bring it to Buffer users on day one.

What's new

Inside Buffer, you can now view post-level analytics for your LinkedIn personal profile.

For each post, you’ll see:

• Total impressions
• Reactions
• Comments
• Shares
• Engagement rate
• Views
• Watch time
• Unique viewers for video posts.

Right now, LinkedIn personal profile analytics live inside the Sent Posts tab within the Publishing area of Buffer. Longer term, we have bigger plans for our analytics feature, and we’re excited about where this will go next.

How I’m using it personally

I try to post on LinkedIn at least three times a week. Some weeks are smoother than others. I’ve got a full-time job and three young kids, including twins. Like everyone, life sometimes gets busy. But staying consistent has unlocked an amazing amount of growth.

In the past 28 days alone, I’ve reached nearly 30,000 people on LinkedIn. My top-performing post, a personal story about balancing work, family, and health, has 14,179 impressions and counting.

That kind of feedback is both motivating and incredibly helpful in guiding what I share next.

I post a mix of product marketing advice, personal reflections, behind-the-scenes content, and new Buffer features. The new analytics help me:

• Spot patterns. Which types of posts drive more conversation? Which formats seem to land better?
• Stay consistent. Having post-level data helps me keep my rhythm, even during busy weeks.
• Fine-tune topics. The data nudges me toward themes that seem to spark more engagement and interaction.

I don't try to overthink every metric; I just try to get enough signal to keep learning and improving.

How to get started

If you’ve already connected your LinkedIn personal profile to Buffer for scheduling, you’ll need to refresh your connection, then you’re all set. Your analytics will be ready and waiting inside your Sent Posts tab.

If you haven’t connected to LinkedIn yet, you can do so from your Buffer dashboard.

1. Add LinkedIn as a channel to Buffer
2. Look at your 'Sent Posts' tab to see analytics

Now you’ll be able to plan, publish, and now analyze your LinkedIn content all in one place.

More to come

We’re bullish on LinkedIn as a platform for creators. More people are building real audiences, sharing expertise, growing businesses, and finding real opportunities from their personal profiles. This is just the start. We’re excited to keep building tools that make it easier to grow on LinkedIn and across every platform you use.

More doesn’t necessarily mean better. Think emails in your inbox, glitter on a Mother’s Day card, hot sauce… That applies to social media metrics, too. 

You might be surprised to hear it.

The more information you have, the better you can tailor your social media strategy, right? Well, not exactly. Not all social media metrics are created equal, and which ones to focus on comes down to your specific social media goals. 

You might be testing a new format, tracking audience growth, or trying to understand how people interact with your posts. And while it’s tempting to track everything, more data doesn’t always mean more clarity.

Metrics are most helpful when they guide your next move — whether that’s adjusting your content, switching up your posting schedule, or even thinking up new products.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through 12 social media metrics that are especially worth a look at in 2025, when they’re most helpful, and how you can use what you learn to support your social media marketing goals.

What are social media metrics?

Social media metrics are the numbers you look at to see how your content is performing against your social media goals.

Any time you check how many people liked a post, clicked a link, or followed your account, you’re working with social media metrics. Each one tells its own story about your content’s reach and impact.

You may hear people refer to them as “social media KPIs” or key performance indicators. They sound similar, but they aren’t exactly the same. 

Metrics include every single thing you can measure on your social media channels.

KPIs are the specific metrics you’ve chosen to track towards your goals.

Let’s look at the key metrics that deserve your attention.

Social media metrics that show what’s landing

Some metrics help you get a better sense of how people are responding to your content. When you track these specific signals, you start to see clear patterns in what your audience enjoys and comes back for.

1. Engagement rate

Engagement rate tells you how much your audience is interacting with your content — not just seeing it, but actively responding to it.

Things like likes, comments, shares, or saves all count towards engagement rate. It’s a quick way to understand whether your content is catching people’s attention and prompting them to respond.

Engagement rate is expressed as a percentage you can calculate with this formula: 

Freelance social media marketer Rebecca Broad uses this metric as a gut check while creating content. “Keeping engagement rate in mind means I constantly assess visuals and copy and ask ‘why would anyone care?’” says Rebecca. 

“Why would someone who sees this post stop scrolling, and spend precious time and energy engaging with it?” It’s a perspective that can help you keep your audience at the center of every creative decision.

You can track engagement rate:

• for a single post
• across a campaign
• over time on a platform

Each view gives you slightly different insights — from how well a specific piece of content landed to how your audience is engaging week over week.

Post engagement rate

Post engagement rate shows you which posts are making people stop and react — not just scroll by.

This type of social media engagement also tells the algorithm your content is worth sharing more widely, though they’re often weighted slightly differently on each platform. For example, shares (especially in DMs) are a strong signal to the Instagram algorithm. Meaningful comments carry weight on LinkedIn, especially when they get a conversation going.

Track this metric when:

• you're experimenting with new content formats
• you're promoting a message you want to stand out
• you want to keep a general eye on what your audience responds to

How to use post engagement metrics

When you see a spike in engagement, don’t stop at the number — figure out what’s behind it. Was the post tied to a trending topic? Did you ask a question that got people talking? Did the visual pop in the feed?

Those are the kinds of clues that can guide what you post next. And if something really clicks, look for ways to repurpose it elsewhere — Rebecca often reworks strong LinkedIn posts into blog CTAs (calls to action).

On the flip side, if engagement is low, that’s your cue to experiment. Change up the format, try a different tone, or shift your focus and see what sticks.

Campaign engagement rate

When you want to know how an entire social media campaign is landing — messaging, post timing, and creatives — campaign engagement rate gives you the full picture.

Because campaigns often span multiple formats and run over several days, this metric can reveal patterns you may not spot while looking at individual social media posts alone. 

Track this metric when:

• you're launching a new product or service
• you're running a seasonal promotion (Black Friday + Cyber Monday, anyone?)
• you're raising awareness on a topic

How to use campaign engagement metrics

For brands, campaign engagement rate is a helpful way to adjust your approach mid-campaign. If engagement’s low, you might rethink your next post or shift your ad spend. It’s also a practical way to test influencer or creator partnerships before making bigger commitments in future campaigns.

Creators can include strong campaign engagement rates in pitches and media kits. A solid campaign engagement rate shows brands that you won’t just get them in front of people — you’ll get people talking, following, and maybe even buying. For a brand looking for its next partner, that kind of result stands out.

Platform engagement rate

Platform engagement rate gives you a broader view of how your content is performing across an entire social media platform. When you track this over time, you’ll start to see whether your audience is still responding or if engagement is beginning to dip.

Track this metric when:

• you’re evaluating whether your overall social strategy is working or needs a shift
• you want to know if the platform is still worth your time, or if your focus might be better placed elsewhere

How to use platform engagement metrics

If engagement is steady or trending up, it’s a sign that the platform is worth continued time and effort. 

If it starts to fall, it could mean your content needs a refresh, your posting rhythm needs tweaking, or your audience is moving elsewhere — and it might be worth following them.

2. Average video watch time

Average watch time (sometimes called average view duration) is the number of seconds people spend watching your video.

It’s one of the clearest video performance metrics — a higher average watch time means viewers are sticking around for longer. It matters even more on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where watch time influences what gets recommended or shown to more people.

Depending on the platform, you might be able to track average watch time for your full library or just individual videos. YouTube gives you both; Instagram Reels focuses on video-by-video performance. 

Track this metric when:

• you’re experimenting with different video lengths or formats
• you’re comparing video content performance across platforms
• you want to see which topics or styles keep people watching

How to use video engagement metrics

A longer average suggests your content is working — whether it’s the pacing, the topic, or how the video opens. Use that insight to guide what you create next.

If people are dropping off early, take a closer look at your hook, story structure, or visual pacing. Small adjustments can make a big difference in how long people stay.

Social media metrics for tracking your content’s visibility

Content can’t make an impact if no one’s seeing it. Visibility and awareness metrics help you understand how often your posts are being shown, and how far they’re reaching.

1. Reach

Reach tells you how many different people saw your post or ad. Each person is counted once, whether they saw that post one time or five times. 

If a post has a reach of 15,000, that means 15,000 different people saw it.

It’s one of the key metrics that Hailley Griffis, Head of Communications and Content at Buffer, tracks. “Different communities and social networks will engage differently, but if you are reaching an increased number of people, then you’re doing something right,” says Hailley.

Reach helps you compare what formats, topics, or platforms are getting seen the most.

Track reach when:

• you’re testing different formats to see which ones grab more attention
• you want to understand which topics or messages your audience cares most about
• you want to see if posting at different times or on different days helps you reach more people
• you’re reviewing which platforms your audience is most active on

How to use reach

Just like you did with engagement rate, start by checking which posts had the highest reach, then dig into the context. Was it the topic? The timing? Did someone share it and extend your audience?

Hailley reviews her reach every couple of weeks to find these patterns and make small adjustments that add up over time.

One thing she’s noticed: showing up regularly makes a difference. “My reach continues to increase on Threads the more I stay consistent,” says Hailley.

“I’ve spotted the same pattern for other creators too. While my Threads engagement is still growing, I’ve also seen increases in overall reach in the last few months of maintaining consistency.”

2. Impressions

Impressions count how many times your content is shown on someone’s screen, even if it’s to the same person more than once.

For example, say someone taps through to an Instagram post from your stories and then also sees the post in their feed the next time they open the app. This counts as two impressions, even though it’s the same person. 

It’s easy to confuse impressions with reach, but they measure different things. Reach tracks how many unique people saw your posts. Impressions count all views, including repeat ones.

For Meryoli Arias, Head of Social Media at Glide, impressions are a north star metric. “As a social media marketer, my main focus is top-of-mind relevance. And the amount of times my message and brand is in front of X amount of people (impressions) helps me with that,” she says.

Track impressions when:

• you’re testing or comparing content formats
• you’re checking if the algorithm is showing people your posts
• you’re measuring overall brand awareness

Just keep in mind: a post can rack up thousands — even millions — of impressions without leading to more followers or engagement, or meeting your business objectives. 

“I had a viral post that hit 2 million impressions. Something that took me two minutes to create was being appreciated by so many people,” says Meryoli. But despite its success, the post didn't do much to boost any of Meryoli's business goals, like increase click-throughs or sign-ups.

“I learned that virality is not and should never be the goal of social media. A good tap in the shoulder for the ego does not equal business success.”

How to use impressions

Look at which formats, topics, or post styles get the most impressions, then tweak things like hashtags, posting schedule, or content collaborations to build on what’s working. 

If your impressions start to slide, it may be time to revisit your content formats,  test a new posting rhythm, or experiment with topics your audience hasn’t seen from you in a while.

Social media metrics for understanding your audience

Audience metrics give you a sense of who’s following along and how that community is growing or changing. They help you see who’s in the proverbial room, so you know who to talk to in your content.

1. Follower growth

Follower growth tracks how many new people are choosing to follow your account over time. It’s one of the most visible social media metrics, and often one of the first numbers people look at when trying to measure progress.

For Meryoli, it’s another north star metric. She uses follower growth to see whether her content is reaching new people and growing her audience — a sign that it’s drawing attention and building momentum.

Track this metric when:

• you want to see if your content or campaigns are reaching fresh eyes
• you're measuring the impact of a recent launch, collaboration, or experiment
• you're setting goals for overall brand awareness or community growth

How to use follower growth

Follower growth can be a helpful KPI, but it’s most meaningful when paired with metrics like engagement and conversions. A rising follower count on its own doesn’t say much about whether those followers are taking action. That’s why it’s sometimes called a “vanity metric” — it reflects potential reach, not impact.

Use it as a signal, not the final measure of social media success. If your follower count is going up but comments, likes, or clicks aren’t, it might be time to adjust your content or CTAs to better engage your followers or reach the right audience.

2. Audience demographics

Audience demographics show you what kinds of people make up your audience — details like age, gender, and location. 

It’s a simple way to check whether you’re attracting your target audience. You can use that information to create more content for the people already following you and adjust your social media strategy if you need to reach someone else.

Track this metric when:

• you want to know if you’re attracting your target audience
• you're considering a shift in content style or topics and want to check fit
• you're preparing a brand or investor pitch or media kit that needs audience proof

How to use demographics

Brands can use this data to shape social media content for different groups. That might mean changing tone or visuals, adjusting timing, or running targeted ads based on who’s most likely to respond.

If you’re a creator, demographic data can strengthen your pitch to brands. When you show that your audience lines up with who they’re trying to reach, you become a much more appealing partner.

Social media metrics for learning how people feel about your brand

Understanding if — and how — people talk about your brand can help you see what’s working and where there’s room to improve. Social media monitoring and listening tools make it easy to track those conversations and see how people feel.

1. Brand mentions

Brand mentions measure how often your brand name pops up in posts, captions, or comments, whether someone tags your @handle or just types your name. Not every mention comes with a tag, so if you’re just relying on notifications, you’re likely missing pieces of the bigger conversation.

You can keep tabs on your brand name, key hashtags, and any phrases associated with you across different social media platforms. There’s no fancy formula here — it’s simply the total count of how many times you’re mentioned across the time you’re checking for.

Track this metric when:

• you want to measure brand awareness across multiple platforms
• you want to catch early signals from campaigns, partnerships, or product launches
• you’re keeping an eye out for potential issues before they escalate

How to use brand mentions

Brand mentions can show patterns in who’s talking about you and what gets them sharing. Maybe a campaign hashtag takes off, or you notice more chatter after a launch or big announcement. This data helps you fine-tune your ad targeting, spot potential brand advocates, and even connect with super fans who are already cheering you on. 

Brand mentions also play a key role in tracking brand sentiment (coming up next), which digs into the mood and emotion behind those conversations.

2. Brand sentiment

Brand sentiment measures how people feel about your brand, content, or product — whether their comments and posts are mostly positive, negative, or somewhere in between.

While mentions tell you how often your brand comes up in conversation, sentiment reveals what’s actually being said and how people feel.

Reading through comments and mentions yourself gives you a sense of sentiment, but this gets tricky as your audience grows. Sentiment analysis tools can help by reviewing those mentions automatically and tagging the tone behind each one.

For example, “This candle smells incredible and lasts for days” would register as positive. A comment like, “This package took ages to arrive and came damaged” would lean negative. 

Track it when:

• you’re checking reactions to a product launch, seasonal campaign, or new collaboration
• you’re seeing a spike in mentions and want to understand what’s causing them
• you’re exploring ways to turn positive sentiment into testimonials or social proof

How to use brand sentiment

For brands, check sentiment on specific campaigns to see if you’ve nailed it — or if there’s something you need to adjust. Are customers complaining about shipping times? Check if the issue is with the carrier or internal logistics. Are they unhappy that you’re non-responsive? A tool like Buffer’s engagement features can help you stay on top of comments. 

For creators, sentiment can help you spot which products or resources are really hitting home. Combine that with metrics like sales or click-through rates (more on this below) to figure out what to offer next. Are people loving your habit tracking template? A goals template might be a natural next step.

Social media metrics for tracking business outcomes

If you’re deciding where to invest time or budget, business outcome metrics can point you in the right direction. They help you see how your content is driving results like growing your audience, increasing website traffic, or making better use of your ad spend.

1. Click-through rate (CTR)

Click-through rate measures how often people click on a link after seeing your post or ad. If you’re sharing a link to your latest blog article, product, or signup page, CTR reveals how effective your post is at turning an impression into a visit.

CTR is expressed as a percentage you can calculate with this formula:

Most major social media platforms — including Facebook, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky — support clickable links in posts. Instagram is a little different: you can’t add links to regular posts, but you can add them to stories with link stickers.

If you use a trackable link — known as a UTM — you can find out exactly how many people landed on your site from a specific post. Rebecca tracks CTR for posts that send people off a social media platform to understand what’s catching people’s attention and prompting them to click.

CTR isn’t a conversion metric — it won’t tell you if someone actually bought those earrings or joined your course. But it’s a strong sign your content is drawing people one step closer to your business objectives.

Track this metric when:

• you want to direct people a product page, landing page, or signup form
• you’re checking whether your ad spend is leading to site visits
• you want to compare how different CTAs or headlines perform

How to use click-through rate

A high CTR is a good sign that your copy, images, or CTA are piquing your target audience’s interest. If CTR isn’t where you hoped, that’s your cue to try something new: tweak your message, refresh your visuals, or experiment with different CTAs to see what gets people clicking.

Brands can use CTR to spot which ads or posts are compelling enough to get people to click through. If a product drop post isn’t driving many clicks, consider changing up the copy or shifting your targeting for the next round.

Creators can use a strong CTR as a powerful talking point in brand pitches — it proves you can send real traffic, not just rack up views. If CTR drops, see it as a nudge to switch up your post structure, test new formats, or experiment with fresh ways to encourage clicks.

2. Cost-per-click (CPC)

Cost-per-click — or CPC — is an ad-specific metric that tells you how much it costs you for each click on your ad. It’s a useful way to keep tabs on how your ads are performing when your goal is to bring people to a specific page.

Because CPC measures cost, this is one social media metric where a higher number isn’t always a good thing. A lower CPC, on the other hand, means you’re paying less each time someone clicks.

CPC is a core paid social metric and is easy to calculate:

You can calculate CPC for individual ads or look at it over an entire campaign.

If you spent $50 on an ad that received 100 clicks, your CPC for the ad would be 50 cents — $50/100.

If you spent $500 dollars on a campaign that received 2,000 clicks, your CPC for the campaign would be 25 cents — $500/2,000.

Track this metric when:

• you’re running ads to drive traffic to a site, store, or signup page
• you want to compare CPC across social media channels to see where your budget goes further
• you’re testing ad variations to see which one drives more clicks for less

How to use cost-per-click

Start by looking at the range of CPC across your ads. If one version costs more to get a click, look at the difference in copy, visuals, or CTA — did one include a clear benefit? Was it shorter, more specific, or better matched to the audience? Use this information to adjust new ads in the campaign.

Compare CPC by platform, too. If one consistently gives you lower costs, consider shifting more of your ad spend there or repurposing what worked in the creative or copy on other channels.

3. Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend (ROAS) measures how much you earn for every dollar spent on ads. It’s one of the clearest ways to check whether your paid campaigns are turning clicks into income.

While CPC measures how much your ads cost you, ROAS measures how much your ads earn you.

Here’s how to calculate it:

So, if you made $5,000 from a Facebook campaign and spent $1,000 on ads, your ROAS would be 500%.

Digital marketing consultant Laura Holyer considers ROAS (and revenue) one of the top paid social media metrics to track. 

It’s a platform-specific metric, and both the revenue and the ad spend data come from the same place — usually the social media platform’s own tracking tools. That means your numbers can be affected by things like cookie restrictions or missing conversion data.

That’s why, says Laura, you should take the numbers “with a pinch of salt” if they’re coming from the platform itself. “Then we look at Blended ROAS figures as one of the top metrics,” she says.

Instead of looking at each platform in isolation, Blended ROAS looks at the bigger picture: how much total revenue you’re earning across all channels — organic social media, Google searches, email newsletters, paid ads — compared to what you’re spending on advertising.

Here’s the formula for Blended ROAS: 

If your business brings in $8,000 overall after spending $1,000 on ads across all channels, your Blended ROAS is 800%.

Track this metric when:

• you want to measure whether your ad spend is converting into sales
• you’re comparing which channels are bringing in the most return
• you’re trying to decide where to shift budget or prioritize spend

How to use return on ad spend

Use ROAS to spot which campaigns are bringing in sales and which ones might need a change in direction — whether that’s updating the offer, tweaking the creative, or rethinking the channel.

Laura points out that the impact of a campaign also shows up in ways other than revenue. If you’re running a brand awareness campaign, you might not see sales right away — but you might notice more people searching for your brand. These kinds of shifts show that your campaigns are working, even if it takes people a little longer to act.

How to track your social media metrics

Once you know which metrics to pay attention to, the next step is figuring out how to track them. Most platforms offer built-in analytics tools, but there are also third-party options that may offer a more complete view.

Platform native insights

Most social media platforms come with built-in analytics, so you can keep an eye on key metrics without ever leaving the app.

What you’ll see (and how much detail you get) depends on the platform, and sometimes on your account type, but nearly all of them cover the basics: impressions, reach, engagement, follower growth, and demographic data.

LinkedIn analytics offers these metrics at both the post and account level.

Instagram creator and business accounts go even deeper with their analytics. The data breaks down:

• impressions and engagements from followers vs. non-followers
• percentage of impressions by content (and audience) type

You also get data about when your audience is most active each day of the week.

X/Twitter analytics are only available to premium users. These detailed metrics include both tweet- and account-level impressions, engagement, link clicks, and follower growth. Link clicks are an important metric here, since tweets directly support clickable links. Free users still get access to basic insights at the tweet level.

Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube all have built-in metrics you can use to measure your social media performance on those channels.

It’s always helpful to see all those metrics right where you create and post, but there are a few limitations — network-specific metrics tools only show you what’s happening on that one platform. 

If you’re sharing content on more than one social channel (and chances are, you are), these built-in dashboards aren’t going to give you the whole story. Third-party social media analytics tools come in handy if you’d like to zoom out for a birds-eye view and see how all your channels stack up together.

For a more complete view of your social media efforts, you might want to explore third-party analytics tools.

Social media analytics tools

While platform-native metrics are helpful, social media analytics tools give you a more complete picture of your performance — especially if you’re working across multiple platforms. Here’s why they might be worth considering.

If you manage several social media accounts, third-party analytics tools save you bouncing back and forth between apps. You can bring all your numbers together in a single dashboard and get a look at how your social media efforts stack up across every platform you use.

Some tools — like Buffer — offer both metrics and personalized insights. Think: 

• which day of the week your posts do best
• what types of content get the most engagement
• how many times a day you might want to post for the best results

Tracking mentions and sentiment is another big win. While native tools are often limited to basic social media metrics, many third-party platforms help you keep tabs on these brand metrics.

And if you’re putting together reports for your team or clients, these tools make that job a lot simpler. Most offer customizable reporting features so you can create reports that match your specific social media KPIs.

Buffer’s analytics tools help you with detailed, personalized metrics and insights that help you achieve and measure social media success — you’ll even get recommendations on when, what, and how much to post based on your data.

Sign up today to test it out for free. 🥳

Picture this: Your boss is asking you about the business impact of your social media strategy. You know you’ve moved the needle — brought in website visitors, converted some of them, and nudged brand awareness. But how do you prove it?

This is where a social media dashboard comes in handy. It’s a visual representation of the key metrics that prove the impact of your social media efforts. Your job as a social media manager is to convert the raw data of social media metrics into something easily understandable for you, your team, and your executives.

But that’s not all it is. A social media marketing dashboard also helps in:

• Uncovering actionable insights about what kind of social media posts are getting the most traction
• Finding which social media campaigns are giving you the highest return on investment (ROI)
• Deciding where you should put your marketing dollars — for example, you’d like to put more resources behind social media platforms that have an outsized impact

This article is a complete guide for creating a social media dashboard: what social media metrics you should monitor, where to get them, how to build helpful data visualizations, and a lot more.

A social media dashboard needs to be personalized

The most important thing about building a social media reporting dashboard is it should be tailor-made. As social media managers, you likely have to communicate with various stakeholders — all of whom have different levels of knowledge about your marketing strategy and social media in general.

C-suite executives might not know which social media channels the company is active on and why. They might also be unaware of the various features of different social media platforms. However, they also have concerns about whether the marketing dollars are well-spent. So, they need more explainers behind your marketing strategy. You need to add not just the engagement metrics but also prove you’ve made informed decisions to get the value of money & resources.

On the other hand, your social media team doesn’t need to know the thought process behind your social media marketing strategy. They likely had an input in formulating it. Their social media reporting dashboard needs to focus more on execution. Perhaps you’re experimenting with a new social media channel — so you need to create custom reports on how your social media posts are performing here and any valuable insights you’ve derived.

Maybe you’re working as a creator on your own business. In this case, your social media dashboard needs to serve only you. You don’t need to include the standard social media metrics since you’re living and breathing them anyway. You need deeper insights about your target audience and what they love.

What a social media dashboard displays depends on who’s at the receiving end. Instead of relying on cookie-cutter social media dashboard templates that you have to spend forever tinkering with, it’s a better use of your time to build custom social media dashboards (and their templates) for your unique use case.

Here’s everything you need to ask to create the most impactful custom social media dashboards:

• Who is on the receiving end of this social media dashboard?
• What do they already know about my social media strategy?
• What’s their level of knowledge in social media marketing?
• Which social media analytics do they care about the most?
• How do they best digest information about social media performance?

Answering these questions will help you tailor the scope of your social media dashboard and eliminate unnecessary bloat.

The shortcut for creating custom social media dashboards

Can you find almost all social media analytics you need natively on your social media accounts? Of course. All social media platforms have in-built performance data.

But that’s a lot of busy work. And I mean, a lot. You’ll have to gather raw data from multiple channels > add it to Google Sheets > derive valuable insights by playing around with the numbers > create data visualizations > and put it in a PowerPoint presentation.

You can develop the muscle to do this quickly and create social media dashboard templates for recurring reports. If that’s the way that works best for you right now, great! Move ahead to the next section, where there’s a step-by-step guide to follow this process. But there’s a far quicker route you can take: Use a social media analytics software.

Analytics tools require you to connect your social media accounts to their software. Then, they aggregate all the real time data from multiple accounts and present it in their own native social media dashboard.

You can play around and tinker with the social media metrics here — filter the ones you need to examine your social media performance and create various custom reports. Most tools also offer the option to brand these reports with your logo, company colors, etc.

Take Buffer. We help you track performance and create a social media dashboard for Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn. Using Buffer, you can instantly know:

• Which types of posts perform the best on your social media channel(s)
• The best day, time, and frequency to post to maximize your results
• All key performance indicators analytics you get natively — follower growth, total reach, engagement metrics, audience demographics, hashtag performance, etc.

There are plenty of benefits of using an analytics tool like Buffer (over creating dashboards yourself):

• You don’t have to collect the data manually. Buffer connects to your data sources and does the gathering task without you lifting a finger. No copy-pasting numbers to a Google Sheet from multiple social media channels. Everything’s already available in a single social media dashboard.
• You don’t have to hunt for insights. Buffer doesn’t just collect data, it also does the work of analyzing it. Is your engagement rate suffering compared to last month? What’s the best time to post for your social media account? It crunches the numbers and tells you exactly what you (and your manager) need to know.
• You don’t have to create custom reports yourself. Look, I may be biased, but this is a fact: Buffer’s reports look way better than the same old spreadsheet. It infuses your social media reporting with not just accurate numbers, but the best data visualization. And you can brand it to call it your own.

And that’s not all: Buffer can do a whole lot more than build your reporting dashboard. It’s a full-fledged social media management tool that can help you store ideas, schedule social media posts, and respond to comments.

Try Buffer for free for yourself.

How to build your own social media dashboard in 3 steps

If you aren’t ready to take the plunge with analytics tools, here’s a 3-step guide to build your own social media dashboard from scratch.

Step 1: Collect all the data you need

The first step is collecting all the social media analytics you need to build your dashboard. Your data sources are the native insights on your social media accounts. If you’re tracking website visits, Google Analytics can also help you understand how much traffic comes via social media.

All social platforms have varying degrees of depth in their key metrics. Social media pages (like Facebook pages or LinkedIn company pages) have slightly more thorough info than individual accounts. Here are some important performance metrics present on all social platforms:

• Total reach
• Follower count
• Follower growth
• Engagement rate
• Audience demographics

Facebook insights are on the Meta Business Suite (for Facebook Pages), for instance. It has all the details about your page followers — audience demographics, follower growth, link clicks, page visits, etc. You can even benchmark your social media dashboard against similar businesses on Facebook.

Similarly, Instagram insights show you data about your Instagram followers. How your audience interacts can differ widely based on the social channel.

You might also have different social media goals for different platforms. For example, maybe you use Facebook to build brand awareness and TikTok to increase conversions. Thus, your Facebook social media dashboard focuses more on overall reach, and TikTok’s social dashboard highlights click-through rates and influencer marketing results. Your social media dashboard should shift based on the direction of your niche marketing efforts.

Bella Rose Mortel, social media strategist at Beehiiv, says the best metrics to monitor are impressions, follower count, shares, and saves. She explains why:

“I think best metrics to monitor are impressions (goal of organic social is always reach and eyeballs), as well as follower count (account growth is an important indicator that you're doing something right), and also shares and saves in content because those are good indicators someone was like ‘hey look at this piece of content!’ or had the intention to save it to come back to later.”

Collect any and all the metrics you’ll need to build your social media dashboard. Where do you collect this data? I recommend Google Sheets because it’s easy to organize your data there. Plus, it’s easy to transfer to data visualization tools.

Instead of copy-pasting, you can also download analytics reports from social platforms and export them to Google Sheets. You’ll have your sheets divided on a channel basis rather than a timeline basis.

,Pro-tip: You can shift the approach of collecting your data based on the goal behind your social media analytics dashboard. For example:

• Instead of having sheets based on timelines (like I have templated above), you can also segregate your data collection based on each individual social channel — one tab for Facebook, another for TikTok, a third for Instagram, etc.
• If you have a strong advertising strategy, you can approach data collection based on your organic and paid efforts.
• If you’re running specific social media campaigns, dedicate one sheet to one campaign.

Think ahead about how you want to present the information on your social media analytics dashboard, and you’ll find the most convenient way to organize your raw data.

Step 2: Present the data in a visually-friendly way

Data visualizations can become the bane of your existence if you don’t know how to create them painlessly.

Many data sources, like Facebook Pages, visualize the data for you in their insights tab. But what if you want to create an aggregate dashboard of all your social channels? Or what if you want to brand it with your own logo, colors, etc.?

This is where data visualization tools come in. Using them, you can enter the data you have on your Google Sheets and create graphs, pie charts, whatever you need. The catch? They aren’t always easy to use, and they aren’t always free. Google Looker Studio is a marketer’s favorite, but I rely on ChartBlocks more. You can import your Google Sheets if you want to. There are plenty of designs to choose from to customize your charts, too.

Some other tools you can use to visualize your data easily:

• Visme
• Flourish
• Julius
• Deckpilot (you just need to prompt and upload your Google Sheet in this tool)

If you want to keep it even simpler, use the social media dashboard templates on Canva or choose from one of their pre-made chart designs that fit your needs.

Step 3: Put the final touches by organizing your various datasets

Transforming your rough data into fancy charts is just the beginning of showing your social media progress. Great social media reporting dashboards go beyond it to present the findings in an easy-to-comprehend way — without everyone scratching their heads and doing the work of “What is this chart telling me?”

Here’s a checklist for transforming your dashboard from respectable to phenomenal:

• Each chart should always have a title and date range accompanying it. This will show your audience what you are talking about and when exactly these results appeared.
• Put the key metrics and findings front and center. Your first reporting slide should present the key takeaways (in text) with adjoining numbers for reliability. For example, if your stakeholders care the most about follower count, discuss it right at the beginning.
• Share your conclusions at the end of each chart/slide. Show you’re making informed decisions by first showing the numbers, discussing what they signify, and what you can conclude. For example, if your goal is to increase Instagram followers and data tells you that Reels increase your follower count, you can justify why you’re focusing your marketing efforts on creating more Reels. Bella from beehiiv explains how she uses these insights to inform her own strategy, too: “The lowest performing posts based on impressions have always been an indicator of types of content to either stop doing or completely reframe. As an example, we saw that carousel posts on Linkedin got so much more engagement and impressions than just text posts, so we started putting our text on multiple slides and people seemed to resonate with it a lot more.”
• Show how your social media presence is benefiting the overall business. It’s easy to see results in a bubble (our follower count increased by 60 percent compared to last month!), but your numbers are empty of impact until they positively impact the company’s goals. Display how your brand’s online presence is affecting business goals.
• Highlight the caveats that affect your numbers. Was your campaign performance affected by the holidays? Did your follower count suddenly drop because of factors beyond your control (like changes in the platform)? Shed a light on these factors — especially in recurring reports — to ensure your stakeholders fully understand what’s going on.
• Present qualitative findings, too. Numbers are great but often don’t tell the whole story — especially in the most successful campaigns. Show how your audience engagement is from a qualitative lens, too. Did you get a lot of positive direct messages (DMs) about a campaign? Did you receive a string of comments from many potential buyers on a post? Add their screenshots and bring them to the dashboard. Qualitative and quantitative work in tandem to present the whole picture.

Want to fast-track this process? Use an AI presentation tool like Plus, which can take your prompts and turn them into slide decks that you can edit quickly.

My last tip is to create a dashboard template for your own use so you don’t have to do all this work manually every time — all you’ll have to do is edit the numbers.

Beyond individual campaign performance dashboards, every other dashboard will have more or less a recurring use. Perhaps you have a monthly dashboard for your social media team and a quarterly dashboard to present in a company-wide meeting. A dashboard template frees up time and resources to create content & nurture audience engagement.

Social media dashboard = your ticket to data-driven insights and smarter budgeting

An effective social media dashboard can do a lot of work to guide your marketing strategy: Does your Google Analytics show website visitors climbing due to a social channel? Double down on it. Does your ad spend on TikTok provide significantly better results than Meta? Cut Meta and invest more money in TikTok.

A dashboard can also help you negotiate for an increased budget for socials in your organization. Concrete insights from your dashboard prove social media’s impact, which increases the chances of stakeholders agreeing to invest more in marketing.

While creating your dashboard from scratch is a viable option, upgrading to a paid analytics tool as soon as possible is best. This will allow you to prioritize implementing your content strategy and leave the data tinkering to the tech lords.

You already know your Facebook insights are crucial for nudging your Facebook marketing strategy in the right direction. Facebook analytics give you the performance numbers you need to:

• Optimize your ad spend
• Improve the reach of your organic posts
• Give statistics you can report to stakeholders
• …And more

But Facebook bid adios to its native Facebook analytics tool (and the Facebook audience insights tool) in 2021. How do you get your Facebook analytics now? This article will tell you everything you need to know to measure your Facebook performance and get valuable insights.

What’s the difference between Facebook analytics and Facebook insights?

First things first: What’s the difference between Facebook analytics and Facebook insights?

• Facebook analytics refer to the raw numbers, data, and performance statistics
• Facebook insights refer to the learnings you derive from the above analytics

For example, let’s say you collate all your best-performing Facebook posts by finding all the content with the most engagement and reach. Here, you’re using Facebook analytics (likes, comments, shares, impressions, etc.) to determine which posts qualify as ‘best-performing’. After this collection, suppose you spot a pattern where most top performing posts were user-generated content. This is a Facebook insight you derived from your analytics.

Facebook offers raw analytics and some insights via its native tools. But you can also use third-party social media analysis tools to take a deeper dive into your performance metrics.

How to derive Facebook insights from 4 native Meta tools

Meta sunsetted its Facebook analytics tool to consolidate data from its other networks (like Instagram) all in one place. Now, you can view your Facebook Page performance in four ways inside Meta:

1. Professional dashboard

2. Meta business suite (only for Facebook Pages)

3. Meta ads manager (only if you run Facebook ads)

4. Facebook group insights (if you have a Facebook group)

1: Professional dashboard

The Professional dashboard is available for creators with professional mode on their Facebook profiles turned on and for Facebook Page insights. It contains simple surface-level Facebook analytics. If you’re looking for some quick insight into how your Facebook marketing is going, this is the best place to look at.

Inside the “Professional dashboard,” you’ll find an “Insight” tab containing four tabs:

1. Home: This section is a basic performance overview of your Page or profile for the past 28 days. You can see key metrics like overall page posts, total reach, page views, engagement, new followers, new page likes, recent content, and some basic info about your audience.

2. Your Page/Profile: Insights under this tab contain post reach, engagement, new followers, unfollows, and total interactions (likes, comments, shares, views, clicks) for the past 28 days.

3. Content: This page contains the public posts you’ve shared in the past 90 days (or you can filter for the past 7, 28, or 60 days) and how they’re performing individually.

4. Audience: Here, you can see fundamental demographic data (gender, age, and location) about the audience interacting with your Facebook Page or profile.

The professional dashboard is excellent if you simply want to do a quick flip-through of your Facebook posts’ performance. It’s not the most in-depth source of information, but it can get the ball rolling and is handy when you’re short on time.

It’s best to visit the professional dashboard regularly to stay in the loop on how your posts are performing and what audience demographics are interacting with your Page/profile.

2: Meta business suite

Meta business suite replaced Facebook analytics to become the source of native Facebook page insights. Facebook profiles with professional mode turned on don’t work inside Meta business suite at the time of writing this article.

The Meta business suite helps with many things (like unifying your inbox, scheduling content on Facebook and Instagram, etc.) including extracting in-depth Facebook analytics and insights into your organic and paid content on the platform.

As soon as you log in to your Meta business suite, you’ll find an “Insights” section on the left menu. Within insights, eight tabs contain extensive and in-depth info on your Facebook performance:

1. Overview: This subsection contains the basic info on your Facebook Page insights. It includes daily and cumulative insights into how much reach you’ve gotten from your Facebook posts. The same tab also breaks down the reach numbers into 3-minute views, 1-minute views, minutes viewed, and content interactions on the X-axis and from followers & non-followers on the Y-axis.

2. Plan: Here, Facebook helps you set goals and complete basic tasks it recommends to set yourself up for success — like the number of times you should post, setting up admins, etc. It’s a good tab to monitor in the beginning to understand Meta’s expectations and the features it offers.

3. Results: This section helps you understand Facebook reach, Page views, follows, and ad performance over your selected timeline. It’s excellent for monitoring whether your Facebook analytics are increasing or decreasing over time. You can also come here to export these graphs for reporting to stakeholders.

4. Audience: When Meta shut down Facebook Audience Insights, it didn’t eradicate it completely. Instead, Meta merged it into the business suite so you can continue to extract the granular details about your followers on Facebook. This tab contains:

• Trends: This tab shows metrics such as how your followers are increasing or decreasing, returning viewers, engaged followers over the timeline you’ve set. It also shows when you should post on Facebook by displaying the your audience’s most active times.
• Segments: Your target audience is divided into people who engage, follow, and message your Facebook Page. You can get insights into all these individual segments.
• Demographics: This is where you can see a breakdown of your audience’s demographic data — their age, gender, and location.

Potential audience: Here, you can add filters on who your ideal customer already is (where do they live? What’s their age? and more) and understand the number of people you can reach via your Facebook Page.

⚠️ Note: The number of people Facebook shares within the potential audience umbrella is an estimate. Don’t take it at face value.

5. Messaging: If you practice any form of customer service via your Facebook Page, this section is a goldmine. You can see how many people contacted you via direct messages (DMs), admins data, number of people who were returning contacts, your response time, and how many of your Facebook conversations converted into booked appointments (if you use that feature).

6. Benchmarking: This is the place where you can compare your Facebook performance to businesses that look like yours. You can either add your industry and evaluate insights like your comparative social media frequency to other companies in the same niche, your total followers & engagement vs. theirs, etc. This is in the “Business comparison” header.

Or, you can also add specific competitors and their Facebook Page(s) to compare your Facebook analytics to theirs. This is in the “Businesses to watch” header.

7. Overview (under “Content”): In this section, you can draw minute insights into every single Facebook post — from Facebook Reels to Facebook Stories. You can see your top content formats, audience retention, and also breakdown this data to compare organic vs. paid or followers vs. non-followers.

8. Content: Here, you can build customized performance charts by filtering for posts or Stories or both, media types, and marketing channels (organic or paid) on one side. 

(If you’re also running an Instagram marketing strategy, you can add that to the graph to get a cumulative performance chart.)

For the other side, you can choose from a plethora of Facebook analytics like impressions, reach, replies, sticker taps, etc.

Meta business suite is an excellent place for Facebook analytics, but it can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning. Converting these analytics to actionable Facebook insights also requires some work and practice.

3: Meta ads manager

If you’ve created ads on Facebook, you need insight into how they’re performing to calculate and improve your return on investment (ROI). The Meta ads manager helps you do just that.

Note: Facebook ads manager and Meta ads manager are the same thing.

After you’ve run your ad campaigns on Facebook, the Meta ads manager can give you extensive statistics into how they’re received in the wild. There are two tabs in the Facebook ad manager:

1. The overview tab gives you basic metrics of reach, impressions, link clicks, cost per thousand impressions (CPM), click through rates, etc., for all your ad campaigns in a table format right next to your campaign name. You can add filters using the drop-down menu to customize this data and find exactly what you’re looking for.

2. The ad reporting dashboard enables you to do the exact same thing. You can apply various filters to customize rows and columns — except here, you can also export them as a CSV file or a shareable link. You can also make this a recurring report by duplicating the analytics and switching the timeline.

4: Facebook groups

If building a community is a part of your social media strategy, Facebook groups are an excellent place to start.

Once you’ve been at it for a while, Facebook gives you valuable group insights. You can learn:

1. Individual post insights

2. Top contributors to explore partnership opportunities or a reward system 

3. Engagement trends — at what time and day do your posts get maximum engagement

Where are these insights? Enter your Facebook group and click on “Insights” in the menu on the left menu.

⚠️ Note: Facebook group insights are only relevant for your Facebook community. What hits on the group might not necessarily perform well on your Facebook page. Use group insights to dictate what you post on your Facebook group, how you interact with members, and gather feedback.

Read more: 22 Top Social Media Analytics Tools in 2024 — Free and Paid Options and How to Use Facebook to Market Your Business

How to acquire Facebook analytics using Buffer (and why you should)

Third-party tools — like Buffer — also offer Facebook analytics. But why should you use them if you know the ins and outs of the Meta world?

1. Buffer is a social media marketing tool — so, it also helps you do related social media management activities like schedule content, cross-post it across social media sites in a few clicks, and use AI to assist caption-writing (among a host of other things). All this and more in just one tab.

2. You can gather cumulative insights data across social media platforms in one place and filter them however you like. That’s a lot of flexibility!

3. Buffer is way easier to use than any of the Meta tools. You can convert analytics to insights, fast (without scratching your head to find what you need). There’s minimal to no learning to curve to Buffer. Meta tools take a while to master.

4. You can build campaigns in Buffer and analyze their performance separately from your out-of-campaign posts.

In Buffer, you get all the basics like impressions, follower growth, reach, link clicks, yada yada. But you can also directly find the answers to questions like:

• Which type of posts get me the highest engagement on Facebook?
• How are my organic posts faring compared to my paid ads?
• What is the best time to post on Facebook for my Page?
• What is the best frequency for me on Facebook?
• What are my audience demographics?

The cherry on top? You can use Buffer to get insights into your Facebook Page and your Facebook Group.

Try it for $0 today.

Which are the Facebook analytics that truly matter?

Once you dip your toe into Facebook analytics, you realize the numbers in this universe are endless. You can examine every single post, run campaigns and measure how they did, create ads & groups, and see their performance…it’s a lot of data.

How do you make sense of the noise?

1. Start simple. First, focus on finding your ideal posting frequency, the best time to post, and the best days to post. Make these your key metrics. This will take a while because you’ll need consistency to get accurate data.

2. Then, go deeper and find which types of posts perform the best for you. Spot a pattern. Are all the posts that get the most engagement videos? Or are they text-based posts? Do customer reviews get more link clicks than product tutorials? All these insights data will help you learn where to double down your efforts.

Keep going by reviewing your analytics every so often. Create reports to see the insight in the analytics. If you keep showing up, you’ll see patterns emerge and understand the numbers that truly make a difference.

Let’s be honest: you probably didn’t get into content marketing because you love working with numbers. 

That’s certainly true for me. I’m a word nerd. I’ll run a mile when threatened with math (don’t even get me started on trigonometry), so examining data has never come naturally to me. 

But I’ve worked in media and content marketing for over a decade now — long enough to know that keeping a close eye on the numbers is essential if you want your content marketing efforts to pay off. 

Thankfully for folks like me, there are many brilliant tools to help you keep on top of your content marketing metrics (little to no math required). But the sheer volume of metrics can be a little overwhelming when you start digging into the data — pinpointing the ones that matter for your brand and business isn’t always easy. 

That’s where this article comes in. In it, I’ll walk you through what are widely considered the key metrics to track when it comes to measuring your content marketing ROI (return on investment), KPIs (key performance indicators), and all the other acronyms business leaders love. Then, to add a little nuance to the discussion, we’ll deep dive into the metrics that matter the most to several top content marketing teams (including Buffer’s). 

Ready to dig in? Again, I promise you won’t have to do any math — word nerd’s honor. 

1. Website traffic

It’s little wonder almost all of the content experts I spoke to mentioned website traffic. This metric indicates how much traffic was generated (how many times your site was visited). Different content marketing analytics tools will have slightly different naming conventions for the important metrics that fall under this bucket. The ones I’ve seen used most often to track content performance are:

Page views

This is usually the biggest traffic number — the number of times a landing page or blog post on your site has been viewed. It’s important to note that this tracks multiple visits from the same person. For example, if one person visits the page ten times, ten page views will be recorded. (Side note: thanks for reading this again, mom!)

Users

Users, or unique visitors, show how many people visit your website. Multiple visits by the same person are only counted once. So even though my mom has read this article 10 times, she’s only counted once. 

2. Organic search traffic

Organic search traffic refers to how many page views are generated by non-paid search results. This number effectively ties into website traffic, but content marketing teams will often make this distinction if:

a) They’re using paid search ads on Google and the like to reach new members of their target audience

b) Search engine optimization (SEO) is an integral part of their content marketing strategy, and they’re aiming to climb the search engine results page (SERPs). 

3. Keyword rankings

Again, if SEO is important to a content team, they’ll likely pay close attention to their keyword rankings — in other words, the website page’s position in search results that are important to their product or service. 

For example, terms like ‘social media management tool’ and ‘social media analytics’ are essential to us at Buffer since that’s a big part of what our product does. People searching Google for terms like this might benefit from using it. By ranking high up on SERPs, there’s a higher chance of them finding our helpful content (and product!).

In most cases, monitoring this will require a separate analytics tool from what you use to track your other metrics. If you’re on the hunt for a tool to help you track keywords and SERPs, check out our free SEO Tools Guide (there are 27 of them on the list.)

4. Click-through rate (CTR) or conversions

One of the most critical metrics for a content marketer to track is click-through rate, or how many clicks toward a specific action a viewer takes after reading, watching, or listening to your content. 

Yes, page views and time on page are wonderful (and important steps towards content marketing success), but click-throughs on call-to-actions (CTAs) or conversions indicate lead generation. In other words, how many people express more interest in your business thanks to your content efforts.

Click-through rates can take many different forms and directions, depending on where the customer is in your digital marketing funnel. Here are some examples:

• Signs up for your product or service
• Downloads a piece of software or resource
• Clicks through to a demo request form
• Signs up for your newsletter
• Signs up for an event
• Joins your community

At Buffer, blog-assisted sign-ups are our version of this metric, and we keep a close eye on this in our analytics dashboard (our Head of Communications and Content, Hailley Griffis, explains why below).

5. Time on page

The average time your audience spends on your website or reading your blog posts (now called average engagement time in Google Analytics 4) is a strong indicator of your content success. 

Time on page indicates how deeply your audience is engaging with your content. More time spent suggests that your work is providing value, and less time spent that your content is falling short or not delivering the content the headline of your article promised. 

6. Bounce rate

Bounce rate tells a similar story to time on page but in a slightly different way. Bounce rate measures the percentage of single-page sessions on your site — in other words, how many visitors only look at one page before bouncing away again. 

A high bounce rate means that a large percentage of visitors are leaving your site after viewing only one page. This is the last thing you want as a content marketer, particularly if that visitor enters the site via a piece of content on your blog or the like. While there are many reasons for a bounce (a slow page load time is a common culprit), it’s a not-to-be-ignored sign your content is not helpful to them.

7. Social media metrics

Is one of your content marketing goals building brand awareness, being seen as an industry thought leader, or driving website traffic? Then, I’d argue a growing, engaged social media following is one of the most powerful tools in your content marketing toolbox. Not only is social media a powerful content distribution engine, but it’s also a great way to see if the content you’re creating is resonating.

Here are some metrics you should consider tracking, no matter which social media platforms you use:

• Follower or subscriber growth
• Engagement rate (the number of actions taken on your content — like, comment, etc. — per number of followers or subscribers)
• Post reach or impressions (how many times a post appears in feeds)
• Social shares (how many times your content is shared)
• Video views

8. Newsletter metrics

Email marketing is another excellent tool for that content marketer’s toolbox. Email is an owned channel — no tricky algorithms to contend with — and it’s one of the most direct and reliable ways to reach your audience.

If you’re leveraging newsletters and email lists in your content marketing efforts, there are three main numbers to pay attention to (all of which you’ll find in the dashboard of your chosen newsletter tool):

• Subscriber growth or sign-ups
• Open rate (how many people open your newsletter in their inbox)
• Click-through rate (how many people click on at least one link in your newsletter)

9. Event sign-ups

In many marketing teams, events are considered part and parcel of a company’s content offering (just look at how Goldcast’s Lindsay McGuire handles them below). Events are just content presented live, after all — and they can be an important source of content to repurpose for short-form videos on social media, YouTube videos, or even blog posts. 

Events can also be a great way to introduce potential customers to your offering and expertise. Brands like Goldcast will often use high-value events to draw people into their leads ecosystem, perhaps using it to build out a newsletter subscriber base. 

If events are a key part of your content marketing strategy, then event sign-ups should be one of the numbers you regularly report on. Tied to this is event attendance and the difference between these two numbers (and there will almost always be one) and views on event recordings if you offer them.

10. Output

I’m adding this one into the mix with a caveat — if content output is a metric you track, you must be clear on why. Output for output’s sake, is something of a vanity metric. If you’re not focusing on high-quality content creation with a clear goal in mind (like Hailley Griffis and Eric Doty explain below), delivering ROI on all your hard work is going to be tough. That said, this may involve tracking things like:

• Blog posts per week
• Social posts per day
• Events per month
• Podcasts per week

Content marketing experts on the metrics they care about (+ why)

Here’s how the metrics I laid out above look as part of a larger content strategy — note how all of them are tied to an important business goal. 

Hailley Griffis, Buffer

Top content marketing metrics: Organic traffic, blog-assisted sign-ups, and articles per week

At Buffer, we track the performance of both our blogs — Buffer Resources and Buffer Library — in a Mixpanel dashboard that shows us page views for the past seven days, 30 days, and three months at a glance. We measure the success of content in those spaces slightly differently. Since the Library is where our SEO-focused content lives, we track the success of these articles there over a more extended period. On Resources, we focus more on timely content, and so shoot for our results there to be more immediate. 

As I mentioned above, blog-assisted sign-ups are an essential number for us, too. “If someone has visited an article on one of our blogs at any point before signing up for Buffer, even if they came in via our homepage or a different part of our site, we consider this a blog-assisted sign-up,” Buffer’s Head of Communications and Content, Hailley Griffis, explains. 

Another metric we care a lot about is our content output — we aim to publish new blog content four times a week, Monday through Thursday. 

This decision has a lot to do with the long, rich history of Buffer’s content marketing history. Our blog has been around since around the time of Buffer’s inception in 2011, and production on the blog slowly ramped up as the team — and the product — grew. We saw amazing organic website traffic results in our peak publishing years, 2014 to 2018. In 2014, we published 422 articles — eight blog posts a week!

It was (and is!) high-quality content, too. Articles produced during that time still rank high up in SERPs — though we have to work hard to keep this authoritative content up-to-date to keep it there, of course. 

But for several reasons — big projects like our audio conference, Built to Last, a smaller team, and eventually, focusing on our COVID-19 messaging as the pandemic began — our blog output dropped. This really impacted our website traffic and Buffer sign-ups and eroded trust with an audience who had come to depend on us.

But since early 2022, we’ve been working on building up our publishing cadence again. “We’ve found that this has a knock-on effect on the other metrics we care about, traffic and sign-ups,” Hailley says. “For example, regular ‘fresh’ content makes it more likely our work will be featured in leading industry newsletters or shared by other thought leaders.”

“But perhaps the biggest part of increasing our output is rebuilding trust with our audience,” Hailley adds. “We want to show them we’re going to show up every week with high-quality content that we think will be useful to them.”

Eric Doty, Dock

Top content marketing metric: Output

Eric Doty, Content Lead at Dock, is a Marketing team of one at an early-stage start-up. He’s spent the past year building Dock’s content program from the ground up. 

“Metrics are meant to guide our behavior and focus,” Eric says. “In the long term, we want to look at metrics like MQLs [marketing-qualified leads], SQLs [sales-qualified leads], and revenue generated. But if I measured these things from day one, we’d mostly be looking at zeros and single-digit numbers — so they’d do nothing to guide my behavior.

Instead, the metrics that matter to him right now are leading indicators for future success. “So the number one thing I’ve tracked for the first year is output. Did we hit our target of eight published blogs every month? Did we publish and distribute our podcast every week? Did we get one weekly marketing email?

“While it’s not in vogue to preach quantity (vs. quality), focusing on the quantity of my output forced me to be hyper-efficient in my processes (while keeping a quality bar). Where do we need tools to add efficiencies? What’s the best way to work with freelancers? How much time do I have in a month for new projects?”

A year into his work at Dock, Eric is turning his attention to other metrics, like organic traffic, video views, social impressions, and more. “You must build a base before you can get to that stuff.”

Lindsay McGuire, Goldcast

Top content marketing metrics: Website traffic and event sign-ups 

As Associate Director of Content and Campaigns at Goldcast, another early-stage company, Lindsay McGuire is laser-focused on brand awareness. “My days are spent overseeing and creating content around how B2B marketers can use events as one of their top revenue-driving channels.”

“As a young startup, right now, we are mostly focused on getting our brand out into the market and then generating demos and opportunities from that brand reach,” she adds.

What does this mean for the metrics? For Lindsay, her goals are tied to overall website traffic and organic traffic. Secondary to those numbers is their conversion rate on specific high-traffic pages. 

As an event-led company, Lindsay has another set of metrics to monitor. “Another huge statistic on my mind is event registrants and attendance, followed by the pipeline [sales leads] generated and attributed from those events.” 

Tom Whatley, Grizzle

Top content marketing metrics: Organic traffic, keyword rankings, time on page, and source of new leads 

Tom Whatley is the Founder & CEO of Grizzle, a content and SEO agency that helps B2B and SaaS (software-as-a-service) companies generate leads, sales pipeline, and users.

These are precisely the business goals Tim expects Grizzle’s in-house content marketing to contribute to. There are several metrics he looks at to monitor success on these fronts, he says.“We measure organic traffic, keyword rankings, and time on page for our content.”

In terms of pipeline impact, the Grizzle team simply asks new leads where they heard about the agency on the initial call and logs that info into their CRM (Customer Relationship Manager). “Sometimes they'll know exactly which article it was that led them to us; other times it's simply ‘Google’ or ‘the blog’ or ‘someone shared X article with me,’” Tom adds. “Right now, this is about as sophisticated as we get as we're in a period of experimentation.”

Sara Ott, Hound

Sara Ott is the Head of Community and Content at Hound, ​​a recruitment & employee engagement software for the veterinary industry in the US.

The metric she’s most focused on right now is bounce rate. “The veterinary industry is a little less tech-savvy than most (sometimes they still do paper charts for their patients!), so when selling software to them, we have to be very clear and educational about why they should even care to have our software,” she explains. 

“So, a lot of our content is more persuasive and teaches our prospective customers about these bigger employee engagement concepts — then we dig into why they need a solution!”

A lower bounce rate for their content is a strong indicator that they’re nailing those goals, she adds. “It signals that our prospective customers are really digging into the content and will be more knowledgeable (and excited!) about the benefits of our software when we get them on a demo.

In turn, this makes for an easier sale and a better relationship in the long run, she says. 

Ben Kazinik, Mayple

Top content marketing metrics: Organic traffic and conversions

For Ben Kazinik, Director of Content at Mayple, there are two pieces of the content marketing puzzle: page views and conversions. 

Thanks to a great domain authority on their website (a score out of 100 used by search engine optimization tools to predict how likely a website is to appear in Google’s search engine results), Ben and his team know that most high-quality content pieces on their blog will rank well, he says.

“Once it does, we look at how much traffic each article gets. Then, we work on converting that traffic into leads by adding interactive widgets, engaging calls to action, and A/B testing all of that. 

“Bringing leads from your content is probably the biggest challenge marketers face, and we are taking it head on,” he adds. “Will let you know if it works out!”

Success on social media can often feel like a secret science. Something that only the few can achieve. But creating a successful social media strategy is a skill that can be learned. Mastered, even.

And you don’t need a flashy brand or a big budget.

What you need is a deep understanding of what your audience cares about, and how to get your content in front of them in the right places at the right times.

That’s why analytics are so important. Analytics help you to make better decisions and get better results. And today, I’m excited to announce our latest feature:

Analytics for LinkedIn Pages!

Together with our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter integrations, this makes Buffer’s analytics an all-in-one solution for these four popular social networks for businesses.

Want to see what’s new and why 3,000 customers use our analytics to boost their social media strategy?

Let’s take a look.

Buffer’s social media analytics and reporting solution

If you have been using Buffer for your social media planning and scheduling but not measurement and reporting, I think you’ll be thrilled to try our analytics. The analytics in Buffer lets you track your performance, analyze your posts, and report your results. Ultimately, we want to give you more data and help you get better results.

Let's talk about the new feature first.

How to analyze and report your LinkedIn performance

We intentionally designed our analytics to be simple so that you can easily get what you need and create reports in a few clicks. For this feature, we managed to work with the LinkedIn team as we built it.

"I'm excited about this new feature by Buffer because we have seen many small businesses leverage their LinkedIn Page to build thought leadership and recruit new teammates. This new feature will help them understand what's working so that they can get better results on LinkedIn," said Ting Ba, the Group Product Marketing Manager of LinkedIn Pages.

Here's a quick 2-min video walkthrough of using Buffer to analyze your LinkedIn posts and showcase your results. If you prefer a more in-depth explanation, feel free to read on.

This new feature will help [small businesses] understand what's working so that they can get better results on LinkedIn.

– Ting Ba, Group Product Marketing Manager, LinkedIn Pages

1. Know what’s working to optimize your LinkedIn strategy

If you know what content resonates with your followers, you can create more of those content to engage your followers and grow your following.

But how do you know what’s connecting with your followers?

Buffer allows you to easily see your top-performing posts sorted by your most important metric: impressions, likes, comments, shares, or engagement rate.

I like to sort my posts by engagement rate because it tells me how often people engaged with a post after seeing it. To me, a high engagement rate is a sign that the content resonated with my followers. But you can also sort your posts by other metrics, depending on the goals of your strategy. There is no one-size-fits-all answer here.

Once you have sorted your posts, you can immediately see which posts have performed the best (according to your chosen metric). Next, analyze the top posts to see if there’s a clear recipe for success. Think about:

• What’s special about these posts?
• Is there a post type (e.g. video, image, article, text) that my audience seems to prefer?
• Is there a topic that my audience seems to like?
• When were the posts published? Is there a trend?

To make things even easier for you, Buffer analyzes your posts for you to tell you which day, post type, and posting frequency gave you the highest engagement rate. This lets you experiment with different posting strategies without the hassle of analyzing your posts yourself.

2. Understand your LinkedIn growth and results

After you have analyzed your posts and come up with more content, you would also want to know if the new posts are bringing in better results.

• Are we getting more followers?
• Is the number of impressions growing month-on-month?
• Or simply, did all the metrics increase?

There are several ways to do this in Buffer, depending on what you want to achieve:

First, if you want a quick overview of your LinkedIn Page performance, you can this at a glance under the Overview tab. This is a summary of your Page’s key metrics and how they have changed compared with the previous period.

Second, if you want to see how these metrics have changed over time, you can look at the metrics insights chart under the Overview tab. This is one of our customers’ favorites because they can visually see the growth of the metrics. It is also a great chart to show others in your reports.

Finally, if you want to see how your posts have performed on aggregate, you can look at the post summary table under the Posts tab. It tells you the number of impressions, likes, etc. received by your posts and how those metrics have changed compared with the previous period.

3. Showcase the value of your work

After all your hard work, you would also want to put together monthly reports to share your results with your team, your manager, or your clients. It is also a great way to show that you understand your numbers.

Every table and chart can be easily added to a social media report in a few clicks.

First, click on the plus button in the upper-right corner of the table or chart.

Then, if you want to create a new report, enter the title of the report. If you want to add the chart to an existing report, select the respective report.

And there you have it—your social media report! (And not a spreadsheet in sight.)

To make your report more comprehensive, I recommend adding a description of the report and notes for the charts in your report. This will help people who view your report make sense of the data and understand your work.

Once the report is ready, you can export it as a PDF file and share it.

Here’s a pro tip: Instead of creating new reports every month, you can simply change the date period of your report to get the updated data.

Everything that I have described above is also available for your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter channels. You can create multi-channel reports by adding charts from various social channels into the same report. You no longer have to go to each social network to download the data and compile them in a spreadsheet!

A recap of our latest analytics features and improvements

Besides analytics for LinkedIn Pages, we have also added several other analytics features this year, which I thought you might be interested in:

Campaigns

Social media is not just about posting X times a day. Top brands plan campaigns that span multiple social networks. You can now plan your social media campaigns and get automated campaign reports in Buffer.

Boosted post insights

If you boost your Facebook and Instagram posts, you would want to know how they are performing. How does it compare with your organic results? You can do this comparison right inside Buffer.

Best time to post on Instagram

The age-old question: when is the best time to post? Our team developed an in-house statistical model to predict your reach potential on Instagram according to your previous posts and your follower activity. This is personalized to your brand specifically. To save you time, we also suggest the top three dates and times to maximize your reach on Instagram.

Hashtag analytics for first comments

While we had hashtag analytics for Instagram posts for a long time, we were not able to analyze the hashtags in the comments. Many customers put their hashtags in the first comment to keep the caption tidy. To ensure that they can also benefit from the hashtag analytics, we made it possible to track and analyze hashtags in the comments.

New date period options for faster reporting

Here’s a small improvement that saves lots of time. Previously, the date period options available were “Last 7 days”, “Last 28 days”, “Last 30 days”, and “Last 90 days”. We realized they were not that helpful because what customers really wanted was to look at their data for the week or the month. So we updated the options to “This month”, “Last month”, “This week”, and “Last week”. This has made weekly reviews and monthly reporting much simpler.

Get more data. Make better decisions.

Doing social media without analytics is like running with your eyes closed. You will get somewhere but probably not where you want to go. We want to equip you with the data you need in a simple and accessible way so that you can make better decisions. Better decisions on what content to post to grow your reach and engagement.

If you already have analytics in your Buffer subscription, the new LinkedIn integration is already available to you.

Otherwise, feel free to grab a 14-day trial of Buffer and start making better decisions.

FAQs

Where can I find the analytics in my Buffer account?

If you already have the analytics in your Buffer subscription, click on “Analyze” in the upper-left corner to see your analytics.

I have a Buffer subscription but why do I not have access to the analytics?

It might be because you do not have the analytics in your Buffer subscription. You can try the analytics for free for 14 days before you decide whether you want to keep it.

Can I connect my LinkedIn personal profiles?

It’s currently not possible to connect your LinkedIn personal profiles to Buffer’s analytics. If you need this, would you be up for sharing your feedback with us?

Once you have the chance to try this feature and Buffer's analytics, we'd love to know what you think!

In just three simple steps, you can boost a post on Facebook and Instagram.

1. Choose a post
2. Select an audience
3. Set your budget

That’s how easy it is.

As organic reach on social media continues to fall, businesses have started to invest more in social media advertising. For some businesses, that’s creating ads. For smaller businesses, the easier approach is often to boost Facebook posts or promote Instagram posts. Here’s why this works so well:

By putting some money behind our organic posts, we can get more results from the same amount of work.

(And if you aren't advertising yet, boosting your Facebook and Instagram posts is a quick way to get started with advertising on those platforms—before you move into more sophisticated advertising.)

But simply throwing $5 here and $10 there isn’t enough. You need to have a strategy behind your boosted posts, and you also need a way to measure your results to ensure you get the most return on your investment.

That’s why today we’re introducing boosted post insights to Buffer.

(If you are paying for the analytics solution in Buffer, you should have this in your account already!)

How to get the best results from boosting posts

Before we get to analyzing your results, here’s a tip for choosing the best posts to boost:

Choose the posts with the highest engagement rate.

Boosting your posts is essentially paying Facebook and Instagram to show your posts to more people, according to what you have specified as the audience.

So you would want to pick the posts that will most likely generate the most engagement (or clicks depending on your goals). Posts with the highest engagement rate are proven posts. They have generated the most engagement, given the number of times people have seen it.

By boosting a post with a high engagement rate, here’s a higher chance that people who see it off the back of your ad spend will also engage with it.

Here’s a quick way to find your most engaging posts in Buffer to boost:

1. Head over to your analytics by clicking on “Analyze” at the top navigation in your Buffer account

2. Navigate to the “Posts” tab of your desired Facebook Page or Instagram account

3. Sort your posts in the “Post insights” table by “Eng. Rate”

The top few posts on the list will be great candidates for boosting. You should, however, bear in mind what you want to achieve with the boosted post and consider whether the organic post suits that purpose. For example, it will be timelier to boost a post that is meant for a marketing campaign during the campaign than after the campaign.

How to optimize your ad spend

You don’t want to just dump your money on boosted posts and forget about it. You should pay attention to the results of your boosted posts and compare the organic and paid results of your boosted posts to see how your investment has fared.

Why? By understanding the difference in your organic and paid results, you can adjust your ad spend according to the results you want to achieve. For instance, as your organic reach grows, you might want to cut back on boosting posts to a baseline so that most of your reach is from organic posts rather than boosted posts. That’s because building a brand solely through paid advertising isn’t sustainable.

With boosted post insights, there are now a few new ways to monitor your results in Buffer. Let’s run through them!

1. Overview performance

The simplest way is to see how boosting your posts has impacted your overall results. When you visit the Overview tab of a Facebook Page or Instagram account with boosted posts, you can immediately see a breakdown of organic vs paid for key metrics such as impressions and reach.

You can hover over the bar to see the exact breakdown between organic and paid.

2. Metrics growth

The next way is to track how your key metrics, such as impressions, have grown over time, especially with your boosted posts.

Are your impressions growing because of more organic impressions or paid impressions? Does that align with your strategy?

3. Post insights

The final way, and the most actionable approach, is to compare the organic and paid results of each boosted post in the “Post insights” table.

You can also click on the image to see more details of the post.

Here are a few questions you can think about while you look at these data:

• How are the paid results relative to the amount spent boosting the posts?
• Are there any boosted posts with exceptional paid results? Was it the media or the copy that might have caused more people to engage with the post? Or was it the audience setting for the boost? (You might also want to consider boosting such posts again if they are still relevant.)
• Am I getting the results I want? Should I spend more money boosting posts next month?

If you create monthly or weekly reports, you might also want to include these data. You can simply add them to a new or existing report by clicking on the “plus” button in the upper-right corner of the table or chart.

Make better decisions

There are so many different things to do as a small business. You should be able to have your data at your fingertips so that you can make swift, high-quality decisions. By comparing your organic and paid results in Buffer, you can make better decisions on investing your advertising budget and get more results.

If you value the money you spend boosting your Facebook and Instagram posts, you might enjoy our latest improvement. Try Buffer for free for 14 days and let us know what you think.

To learn more, feel free to check out our help article or join us for our upcoming webinar.

Frequently asked questions

Are ads created through Facebook Ads Manager included?

Not at the moment. After you let Buffer access your ad data, you will only see data for your boosted Facebook and Instagram posts in Buffer. If you would like to see data for your ads created through Facebook Ads Manager in Buffer, let us know!

How often are the data in Buffer updated?

The data for your Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts are updated about every six hours. We are working to improve this so that you get the most updated data whenever you visit Buffer. Also, the data you see in Buffer excludes today’s data.

I'm paying for Buffer. Why do I not see this in my Buffer account?

There are two possible reasons. First, you might not be subscribed to our analytics solution. To get boosted post insights and other analytics and reporting features, you'll need to add this to your Buffer subscription.

Second, if you are already paying for our analytics solution, you might need to grant Buffer permission to access your ad data. You can do so under settings.

For more specific questions about the feature, see our help article.

Got a question? Have some feedback? Feeling like you want to celebrate with us? Feel free to head to the comments in our Instagram post below to share all your thoughts, comments, questions, and celebrations! ?

Search “best time to post on Instagram” and you’ll find countless articles telling you when to post according to studies of a few million Instagram posts.

We have written such articles ourselves. For a long time, we thought that’s the way to grow our reach and engagement on social media.

But that is no longer the best approach.

There are many reasons for the change. Most importantly, you now have much more data about your own posts and followers. The best time to post is when your followers are online and engaging with your posts.

How do you know when to post?

Well, you can now get recommendations for when to post on Instagram to maximize your reach, with Analyze. Curious to find out more? Read on.

Analytics as your assistant

Analytics is often simply numbers and graphs. It’s easy to understand why some people are intimidated by analytics. But that doesn’t have to be the way. Analytics can be joyful and fun. It should help you take away the tedious work of dissecting graphs and calculating numbers. Analytics should feel like your assistant.

With Analyze, you don’t just get charts. You’ll also see three recommended times to post on Instagram. They are times when your predicted reach is among the highest during the week.

Most people would find the three recommendations sufficient but if you want more, you can then dive into the charts.

How does it work?

Your brand’s best time to post is unique to your own brand. That’s because your Instagram followers behave differently from the followers of other brands. So your best time to post should be dependent on your followers’ behavior.

Here’s how Analyze predicts your reach:

First, it looks at how your previous Instagram posts have performed and when they were posted. Do posts at certain times of the day or the week get more reach? Second, to make the predictions more accurate, it also looks at when your Instagram followers are online.

Using these two pieces of information, Analyze predicts your reach on Instagram for each hour of the week. For each hour, Analyze also informs you how the predicted reach compares with the average hourly reach for the whole week.

Then, it recommends three times to try.

You’ll notice that the three times aren’t necessarily the three times with the highest predicted reach. That is intentional. The top times are often next to each other (e.g. Wednesday at 1pm and Wednesday at 2pm). Unless you are posting about a live event, it doesn’t help your reach by publishing multiple posts around the same time. By spreading out your posts throughout the week, you can maximize your reach for the week.

Grow your reach more efficiently

Once you know your best times to post, you can go to Publish to update your posting schedule.

First, go to your Instagram account in Publish and click “Settings” then “Posting Schedule”.

Here, you can add new posting times or adjust your existing posting times to your best times to post.

The times are saved automatically, and you are ready to publish at your best times! Simply add new posts to your queue to schedule them at those times.

It’s worth noting your best times to post can change over time. While your followers’ behavior shouldn’t change drastically, every new post gives Analyze additional data to work with. With that, it might find new best times to post. I would recommend checking your best times to post every few months, especially if you have recently tried new posting times.

Insights delivered to you

We should all be spending less time figuring out our data and more time optimizing our campaigns. With the recommendations in Analyze, you can save some time analyzing your data or reading “best time to post” articles so that you can focus on what’s more important — creating great content.

This new feature is available on all Analyze plans. Give it a go, and take some time back from analyzing your data.

Try Analyze today.

P.S. In the future, you can expect Analyze to surface more insights to you, rather than you searching for them yourself.

One thing we’ve heard over and over is that logging into social media analytics tools can leave marketers feeling a little lost. Sure you can see the reach and engagement of your posts but how is this really impacting your business?

Social media tools have been great at giving us social media metrics. But they terribly lack at providing us with a comprehensive view of the business. Unless you are running social ads, chances are you find it hard to know how your marketing efforts have influenced sales.

For direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands that invest in social media, the need to understand how social media and sales relate to each other is crucial. Marketers at these brands need to know how their social media strategy is helping the business. To them, social media is not just about getting likes and comments…

but how their social media posts are driving the business forward.

That’s why we are thrilled to introduce the first version of our Shopify integration today. You can now have your social and Shopify data in one single tool and create modern, visual reports with more data about your business.

(Can’t wait to get started? Start an Analyze Premium trial to try the integration right away!)

Realize the full potential of your brand

Our customers use our platform of products to build their brand and connect with their customers online. Analyze, our new analytics product, aims to help you realize the full potential of your brand.

To achieve the best version of your brand, we want to give you:

• More data to provide a more complete picture of your brand
• Data that are easy to understand and share
• Strategies and tactics to achieve your goals

Currently, social media marketing can feel isolated from the business. You spend time creating content, find the best time to post, and respond to questions on your posts. At the end of the day, you can only report on follower growth, reach, and engagement.

Only if you had more data about your marketing efforts and the business!

When we look at 1,300 top DTC brands, we learned that 87.4 percent of them use Shopify to sell their products.

Shopify provides data that marketers and small business owners often lack in social media tools — sales data. We realized it’s a source of data that could give you a more complete picture of your brand:

Social + sales

Simplified Shopify reporting in your Buffer dashboard

“We usually cross reference metrics from Shopify and our social media analytics.”

When we asked our customers how they figure out whether what they are doing on social is worth it, we heard several versions of the quote above. That’s when we realized our customers have a problem we could solve.

With the new Shopify integration, you’ll have your social media and Shopify data in a single place — Analyze. For this first version, we focus on a few key metrics you need and put them in the same dashboard as your social media data.

At the top of your Shopify tab, you can get a quick health check-in on your business. This is built for you to get a sense of your business health at a glance.

One of the metrics you’ll get is your average customer lifetime value. This is an important metric to know because to have a profitable business, you generally want to spend less money on acquiring new customers and retaining them than they spend on your products.

You’ll also get data to help you understand where your sales are coming from and what products are selling well.

Which channel drives the most number of customers or the highest sales?

Which channel brings in the most valuable customers?

Which are my top products, and where are the sales coming from?

This additional data from Shopify in Analyze will give you a better picture of your business than having only social media data.

To make it easier for your reporting, you can add the tables to your reports in Analyze, download them as PDF, and share them with your team. Just like any other tables and charts in Analyze.

Connecting social media and sales

For a long time, marketers have struggled to show the impact of social media on the bottom line. Much of this data is not available in social media tools that marketers use to plan, optimize, and report their campaigns. It just felt off that marketers can plan and measure their social media campaigns in one tool but have to find another, often much more complicated, tool to know that the campaigns are selling products.

Now you can report how much sales your social media marketing strategy has generated for the business — using a single tool.

(These numbers do not include orders from customers who saw your social media posts and went to Google to search for your website and buy products. That is much harder to track right now. But you now know, at the minimum, how much sales came directly from your social media profiles and the actual impact is much higher.)

You no longer need to jump between tools to draw the connection between your social media efforts and your sales.

Hannah Pilpel, social project manager at MADE.COM, discovered that customers from organic social have a higher average order value than the site average. You can now see this for your business, too.

Gain a better understanding of your brand

Having more data and analytics is essential for realizing the full potential of your brand. It gives you insights to act on and improve your marketing campaigns so that you can grow your brand and your business.

This is just the first version of our Shopify integration, and we are keen to explore more ways to make it more valuable to you. For example, here are some of the areas we have been thinking about:

• Per-post sales: Find out how much sales each social media post has generated
• Campaign sales: Know how much sales your campaign has generated
• Customer insights: Learn more about the social media users who are buying your products
• Customer lifetime value: Calculate customer lifetime value for different segments
• Product buzz: Get insights into who’s talking about your products on social

For now, with your social media and Shopify data together in Analyze, you can already have a better understanding of your marketing and brand.

Give yourself an advantage today.

Try Analyze for free.

Data is the fuel that powers a social media strategy.

And understanding the data behind your social media performance can help you to make better decisions about your content, ensure you’re connecting with the right audiences and help you to boost engagement and grow your following.

The problem is, there’s a lot of metrics to measure. Here are just a few you might need to keep an eye on:

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Clicks
• Reach

And when you think about multi-platform performance (across Facebook and Instagram, for example), that list doubles in size — I’m feeling the strain just thinking about it!

Mastering social media analytics isn’t easy. But it’s essential if you want to create a winning strategy.

In this post, I’ll walk you through some steps you can take to make social media analytics your secret weapon.

Buffer Analyze: Buffer’s Social Media Analytics and Reporting Tool

We are excited to introduce Buffer Analyze, our social media analytics tool for online brands that want to make better decisions about their social media strategy and measure their results without feeling overwhelmed.

Read on to learn how you can use Buffer Analyze to grow your following and engagement on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

How to create a data-informed strategy with social media analytics

The key to a data-informed social media strategy is understanding your audience and your own content. The two work hand-in-hand.

When you understand your audience, you can create content that they like, and by measuring the performance of your content, you can learn about your audience’s preferences.

There are several things you can do with social media analytics tools to grow your reach and engagement — below I’ve broken them down to things you should do daily, weekly, and monthly.

1. Stay on top of your latest social media posts

It’s common for social media managers to regularly check their Instagram profile and Facebook Page to see how their latest posts are doing. This often means checking two separate apps multiple times a day.

Experiencing the pain ourselves, we wondered if there’s an easier way for social media managers to stay on top of their most recent posts.

Right on the home page of your Buffer Analyze account, you can see your five most recent posts across your Instagram profile and Facebook Page. You can also immediately see each post’s reach and engagement rate. To see more metrics for a post, you can simply click on the image.

Depending on how often you post, you can pop into your Buffer Analyze account a few times a day to get a quick update on how your recent posts are performing. I would recommend doing this at least twice a day — once at the start of your day and once at the end.

2. Study your top posts

Studying your social media posts at the end of every week (or the start of a new week), enables you to learn which posts have resonated with your audience (highest engagement rate) and which have spread far and wide (highest reach). With this data, you can then plan your social media content for the new week.

In Buffer Analyze, you get a detailed breakdown of your social media posts, including boosted Facebook and Instagram posts.

For each post, you get all the key metrics to help you understand how your audience reacted to your post:

• The number of likes
• Comments count
• Impressions
• Reach
• Engagement rate.

I would recommend taking a look at your top posts — be it highest engagement rate or highest reach — every week and try to deduce what helped them perform so well. Is it the creative? Or the caption? Doing this week over week will enable you to build up a good sense of what your audience loves to see from your brand.

Besides data for your Instagram posts, Buffer Analyze is one of the few social media analytics tools that provide Instagram Stories analytics.

Buffer Analyze shares reach and completion rate for individual Instagram Stories and overall metrics, such as total impressions and average reach, for all the Instagram Stories you have posted within your chosen period.

This is our first version of Instagram Stories analytics, and we are keen to make it better with your feedback. Feel free to email me at alfred@buffer.com if you have any thoughts. Thank you!

3. Understand your reach

A big part of a successful social media strategy is reaching the right audience.

It is more valuable to reach a small group (1,000~) of people who would be interested in your product than a large group (1,000,000~) who would not even consider your product.

But how can you ensure you’re connecting with the right people on social media?

We believe you should be able to glance at your data and say “The majority of our fans are females, age 25 to 34, who live in London, which is precisely the audience we want to reach.” So we built an audience overview into Analyze:

Buffer Analyze also has a more detailed breakdown of your audience so that you can refine your content or posting strategy to reach your target audience.

For example, if most of your audience are not in your target location, you could experiment with local hashtags or posting times that match browsing behavior in that time zone.

Here’s something else to consider:

Instagram and Facebook ads offer very precise targeting, including gender, age, location, interests, and more. If you have the budget to spare, you could run some ads to shift your fan demographics accordingly.

Changing your fan demographics takes time. Consequently, it’ll make sense to check on your audience data every month, rather than every day or week.

4. Refine your posting strategy

The most common questions we get about social media strategy are:

• What is the best time to post?
• What should I post?
• How often should I post?

Quick disclaimer: There isn’t a universal best time to post. The answers to these questions are unique to your own brand because you have your unique set of audience.

In the past, we had always recommended social media managers to download their data from the native analytics or Buffer Publish, import it into a Google Sheet (or a template we created), and manually figure out their posting strategy.

We realized that can be tedious!

This is why we built these recommendations directly into your Buffer Analyze account. By studying your past posts, Buffer Analyze tells you the day, the type of post, and the frequency that got you the highest engagement rate. For Instagram, Buffer Analyze also tells you the best time to post for the highest reach. No more manual calculations!

To make things even easier for you, Buffer Analyze gives you the recommendations directly. You do not even have to study the charts yourself.

Your social media posting strategy shouldn’t have to change often as the behavior of your audience should remain fairly constantly. Hence, checking Answers in Buffer Analyze and tweaking your posting strategy (if necessary) about once a month should be sufficient.

5. Report your results

Finally, it’s good to create reports of your results every week or month to regularly show the value you are bringing to the business.

With Buffer Analyze, you can create professional reports in as few as two clicks. Every module in Buffer Analyze has an “Add to Report” button, which lets you add it to your report quickly. You can add modules from both your Instagram profile and your Facebook Page into a single report.

Here are three quick tips for reports:

1. Automatically updated reports: If you have selected a fixed date period (e.g. past 7 days or 28 days), your report will automatically update itself every day — so you don’t have to manually create reports every time.
2. Fast way to update other reports: If you’ve chosen a custom date period, you can simply change the dates to update the report, without having to recreate the report from scratch. For example, our social media manager, Bonnie, has an Instagram Sprint report, which she checks every two weeks.
3. Analytics dashboard: Another great way to use reports in Buffer Analyze is to pull all the data you regularly need into one report, making it a dashboard. This saves you from having to navigate around your Buffer Analyze account to find those data all the time.

How often to report your social media results depends on your social media strategy. For instance, we set our social media goals every two weeks so we share the reports every two weeks. If you set monthly goals, reporting once a month works fine too!

Use data to grow your brand and engage your fans

You shouldn’t be taking shots in the dark with your social media content and posting strategy. By knowing what’s working and what’s not working, you can refine your tactics and strategies to grow your engagement and following.

We are excited to be part of this journey with you. If you have any questions about Buffer Analyze, feel free to reach us on social media.

There has been much discussion recently on industry-leading publications about the effectiveness of video on social media.

For example, did you know that video posts on Facebook receive at least 59 percent more engagement than other post types?

Since our 2017 research with Animoto comparing square vs. landscape video, little has been published around the impact of video format on overall video engagement.

Specifically, vertical video vs. square video.

While we know that square video (1:1) results in 30-35 percent more video views and an 80-100 percent increase in engagement compared to landscape video (16:9), we wanted to know how vertical video stacks up on Instagram and Facebook (both within the News Feed and Stories).

Which is why we teamed up with our friends at Animoto once again to test (and test again) the hypothesis that vertical video would perform better than square video on social media.

We were shocked by the results!

Today we’re excited to share our research with you along with several actionable takeaways for marketers looking to improve their social media video marketing results in 2019.

Author’s Note: We’ll be talking a lot about great video marketing tools in this post. Our must-haves are Animoto’s iPhone app for vertical videos, Animoto’s web app for square videos, and Buffer for sharing. Feel free to grab a subscription from each before we get started.

Table of Contents

Below are the full details from our study on everything from our vertical video hypothesis to the surprising results! Here’s a quick look at what we’ll cover:

• The vertical video and mobile hypothesis
• 3 important video marketing takeaways
• Other key video marketing learnings
• Overall vertical video research conclusion
• What’s next for video marketing?

Let’s do this!

The vertical video and mobile hypothesis

This research idea with Animoto all came from one simple statistic: square video takes up 78% more real estate in a person’s mobile newsfeed than does landscape video – making square video more engaging, more effective, and easier to watch.

And since square video outperformed landscape video in almost every category, we hypothesized that vertical video would eclipse square in a brand new study.

But why is video – particularly mobile video – such an important part of your social media strategy?

According to a recent report from Nielsen, U.S. adults are spending 10 hours and 24 minutes per day interacting with media, whether that be watching, listening to, or reading content across all of their devices.

And shockingly, mobile phones (smartphones) alone accounted for 65% of total digital usage, up from 62% in Q1 2018:

As mobile usage continues to increase year-over-year, our social media and video marketing strategies must evolve along with the expanded use to focus on mobile-first experiences.

Sometimes that’s as simple as formatting the video to fit natively within the platform.

3 important video marketing takeaways

Video is leading the way with social media marketing and so we’re super excited to share this actionable research with you.

By the end of this article, you’ll be equipped with data-backed ideas and insights that you can apply to your own videos today.

But first, a few key takeaways to set the study up!

1. Facebook News Feed: Use vertical video to drive traffic

In all of the experiments we conducted, we consistently found that vertical video outperformed square video within the Facebook News Feed. First let’s look at the cost per click (CPC) comparison:

• Buffer: Cost per click (CPCs) 26 percent less expensive with vertical video
• Animoto: Cost per click (CPCs) 38 percent less expensive with vertical video

Next, let’s take a look at the cost per view (CPV) comparison:

• Buffer: Cost per view (CPVs) 68 percent less expensive with vertical video
• Animoto: Cost per view (CPVs) 26 percent less expensive with vertical video

Since the video tests (vertical vs. square) were identical in content, theme, length, headline, caption, and more, it came as quite the surprise that vertical video outperformed square by such a significant margin (as much as 68 percent less expensive in cost per view).

It’s also interesting to note that not only did vertical video outperform square in the Facebook News Feed, but Facebook outperformed Instagram in overall cost per click (CPC) within the feed. An important takeaway for advertisers.

Buffer averaged $0.29 CPC on Facebook and $0.51 CPC on Instagram. Animoto averaged $0.32 CPC on Facebook and $1.31 CPC on Instagram.

2. Instagram Feed vs. Stories: Stories are a great way to inspire action

When looking at the Instagram Feed vs. Stories, it became immediately clear that Instagram Stories are a great way to inspire people to take action. In both the case of Buffer and Animoto, Stories consistently reduced advertising costs in regards to cost per thousand impressions (CPM) and cost per click (CPC):

• Animoto: Stories 57 percent less expensive for CPMs and CPCs than the feed
• Buffer: Stories 50 percent less expensive for CPMs and 30 percent for CPCs than the feed

Cost per click (CPC) data:

Cost per one thousand impressions (CPM) data:

However, it’s important to note that costs actually increased with Stories compared to the feed when measuring cost per view (CPV):

• Animoto: 108 percent more expensive on 3-second CPV and 65 percent more expensive on 50% total watch time CPV
• Buffer: 71 percent more expensive on 3-second CPV and 21 percent more expensive on 50% total watch time CPV

As many of you savvy marketers might have guessed at this point, we witnessed a rise in cost per view as cost per click decreased.

We believe that this is largely due to the fact that it is hard to get people to watch your entire video when they’re too busy taking action such as “swiping up” or clicking on a link.

Overall, Instagram Stories are a great way to get people to take action and a big opportunity for brands to utilize in 2019.

3. Instagram News Feed: Use vertical video to generate engagement

The final big takeaway from our research is that the Instagram Feed is a powerful platform for driving engagement when compared to Facebook (News Feed & Stories) and Instagram Stories… almost too good!

Reversing the Instagram Feed data from takeaway #2, you’ll notice that 3-second CPVs were 91 percent less expensive on average for Buffer and Animoto. In addition, 50 percent total watch time CPVs were 43 percent less expensive on average.

But which format drives more engagement within the Instagram Feed? Turns out it’s vertical video!

• Animoto: Vertical video resulted in 13 percent more 3-second video views and 157 percent more 50% total watch time views
• Buffer: Vertical video resulted in 6 percent more 3-second video views and 187 percent more 50% total watch time views

The practical takeaway here is that the Instagram Feed is a great way to boost awareness around your product and generate engagement.

Other key video marketing learnings

In addition to the three key learnings above, our research pointed to some other unexpected takeaways that you might be able to apply to your video marketing strategy.

1. Facebook marketing is alive and well

We’ve discussed the power of Facebook marketing (here and in previous studies) and found that it remains a viable way for brands and businesses to reach target audiences. Particularly, if you’re looking for an inexpensive way to drive traffic to your website.

In all of our tests, we found that Facebook consistently generated a lower CPC than its Instagram counterpart.

While Instagram was the most effective way to generate interactions and engagement in our tests, Facebook emerged as an extremely reliable way to drive traffic.

We’ve seen this hold true over the past two years at Buffer as well. Our most successful social media advertising campaign of all time – a campaign that is still running today – runs on the Facebook News Feed:

This campaign has generated more than 169,000 link clicks and reached more than 1,500,000 people since launching in April 2017.

The best part is that it’s a super simple ad concept:

While brands and businesses flock to Instagram in 2019 in search of a new promising advertising platform, look for Facebook to continue to offer a low-cost, action-based alternative.

In terms of what type of content to create for Facebook, remember that, on average, video posts receive at least 59 percent more engagement than other post types.

2. Highly-produced “polished” video content doesn’t always win

One of the more interesting portions of our experiment revolved around testing what we called “organic” vs. “polished” video content.

• Organic videos are what you would imagine as DIY-style. These videos didn’t include any B-roll, special effects, transitions, or other more produced elements. In other words, they looked like they were made by an amateur.
• Polished videos are much more produced. These videos included studio lighting, B-roll, special effects, transitions, and other elements that give them a professional feel.

With our research, we wanted to know if spending more time, resources, and money on producing polished videos actually resulted in greater results than organic DIY videos.

We found that there was no statistically significant difference in the results.

In fact, in many cases, organic DIY videos outperformed polished videos on both Facebook and Instagram.

In collaboration with Animoto, Smarties ran their own experiments to test whether or not highly-produced video ads outperformed organic DIY video ads on Instagram Stories:

Their team found that organic DIY videos resulted in a 50 percent decrease in cost per 10-second video view on their highest performing ad. In their case, unpolished smartphone imagery was up to 2x more effective at capturing their viewer’s attention.

All of this to say that it’s more important to experiment with a variety of video types and formats than it is to work on perfecting a single video. The more video content you publish, the more feedback you’ll receive from your audience, and the quicker you’ll improve.

3. Instagram Stories ads one of the biggest opportunities in 2019

As a result of this experiment, we see Instagram Stories as one of the biggest opportunities for brands and businesses in 2019. It’s why we built a tool called Stories Creator dedicated to helping brands create thumb-stopping Stories content.

And though Instagram Stories now has an incredible 500 million people around the world using the channel on a daily basis, it remains a relatively untapped advertising resource.

“Right now, one of the interesting things about Stories is there’s a benefit to being an early adopter… the pricing is really attractive. And so we think the mix shift to Stories is a big opportunity for us. And it’s going to take time to continue to get advertisers in, but we’re very happy with demand to date,” explained Sheryl Sandberg in Facebook’s recent Q4 earnings call.

We discussed the impact of Stories in this research above, but other big brands such as Bustle, Nike, Square, and more have experienced similar results as a part of their strategies.

Blenders Eyewear, for example, has generated thousands in revenue for their products using Stories ads – leveraging special announcements like a much anticipated restock, flash sale, giveaway and any limited time promos:

We’ve seen similar results when we use Instagram Stories ads to promote our blog posts and podcast as well. Our Instagram Stories ads cost just $0.06 – $0.12 per click when a typical Facebook feed ad usually costs around $0.30 – $0.60 per click.

Multiply that cost savings by thousands of dollars in ad spend and it’s a no-brainer in choosing Instagram Stories as our primary social media advertising channel in 2019.

Overall vertical video research conclusion

If we were to boil down this research to one key point, it would be that businesses and brands must keep up with mobile-centric video trends if they want to succeed on social media in 2019. A mobile-centric strategy relies heavily on vertical video and creating content that feels native to each platform.

As we mentioned in the beginning, mobile phones alone accounted for 65% of total digital usage in Q2 2018 (up from 62% in Q1 2018) – with that number growing by the day.

Everything from your website to the content you create for social media must focus on the mobile experience. Sheryl Sandberg puts it perfectly when she mentions:

One of the challenges that marketers have is keeping up where consumers are. If you think about our history, people made the shift to mobile before marketers did. And I think one of the successes we’ve had is we made it easier for advertisers to move into a mobile environment.

For marketers, the constant challenge is making it easier for your audience and customers to consume content when and where they want it. Not when and where it’s convenient for you, but when and where it’s convenient for them.

Luckily for us, Facebook and Instagram are making it easier than ever for marketers to provide a mobile-first experience.

It all comes down to whether or not you are willing to be an early adopter, experiment with vertical and square video, try new things, and always be looking to the future of social media.

What’s next for video marketing?

We’re in the midst of a video revolution. The traditional 16:9, landscape format is being replaced by a new, 9:16, vertical format that has fast become the default for video creation and consumption.

Vertical video used to be seen as a mistake —something people do when they forget to turn their phone horizontally while filming — but since the rise of platforms like Instagram Stories, vertical video has taken over and become an innovative way for individuals and businesses to tell stories.

Over one billion people use the vertical video format on Facebook-owned properties like Instagram and WhatsApp alone — and even YouTube has now embraced vertical video on the web and mobile.

Vertical video has changed video production. Anyone can now create incredible video content from a smartphone — no need for cameras, expensive editing suites, it can all be done in the palm of your hand.

Interested in creating  your own vertical videos? Check out Animoto’s Social Video Maker iPhone app designed for just that. Their web app is great for mobile-friendly square videos. We used Animoto to help generate more than 2,000,000 video views on social media in 2018.

This week on #bufferchat, “tech humanist” Kate O’Neill (founder of KO Insights) stopped by to share her thoughts about using data to shape experiences. The community discussed how to measure experiences, how to identify meaningful data, what to do when the data doesn’t match your intuition, and much more!

Read on to discover all of the awesome insights that were shared during the chat!

Catch our weekly Twitter chat, #bufferchat, at TWO times every Wednesday for valuable industry insights and to meet hundreds of other smart marketers and social media enthusiasts. Same topic, same place, just at different times – feel free to join in to whichever chat time works best for you!

4 pm AEST (Sydney time)

9 am PT (San Francisco time)

This week’s stats:
Bufferchat #1 (4 pm AEST): 26 participants, reach of 1,061,364
Bufferchat #2 (9 am PT): 111 participants, reach of 1,396,574

Q1: In your field of work, how would you define a “meaningful experience”?

From Kate:

• A meaningful experience is something that resonates, that aligns the creator of the experience & the person consuming it.
• I think of it this way: my education was in languages/linguistics, and there’s this three-part model of communication.
• In this model, the three parts of communication are: 1: speaker’s intent, 2: message itself, 3: what the listener takes away.
• To be an effective/meaningful communicator, you have to think all the way through the message to how listener will receive it.
• Creating meaningful experiences is similar: you create the opportunity to interact in a way that you hope will resonate.
• So it’s about working not just from the brand outward but also from the customer inward, and trying to make their needs align.

From the community:

• “Meaningful experience is when I see my clients succeed, grow and it’s beneficial for their personal & biz development.” @ZalkaB
• “It’s meaningful if it fits a defined user need/story. As a [name] I want to [do something] So I can [achieve my goal] etc.” @ComfortWriter
• “In #HigherEd, the opportunity for students to grow + make connections beyond themselves.” @FeministSexEd

See all the great answers to question 1 here!

Q2: Following Q1, how could you measure that experience?

From Kate:

• You do have to measure the usual stuff, like clicks and page views and conversions because that’s the transactional stuff, the mechanics, that gives you immediate feedback on whether something is fundamentally broken.
• But if you’re looking for deeper insights, you have to look at less obvious measures and sometimes more complex things.
• As a silly and simple example, I use this example: say you’re trying to sell mattresses. You could just have a sale, or you could, say, stand on a busy street corner as people walk to work and hand out little cups of coffee printed w/ a message. Like “if you’d slept on a SleepAwesome mattress you wouldn’t need this coffee.” With a dedicated URL and/or QR code.
• It would at least have a chance at resonating, and you could bring people into a coffee-themed sleep experience. (I love coffee. ☕️)
• Not just because it’s catchy or clever; it’s about meeting the customer where they are. Then measuring and improving. More in line with unique characteristics of the brand, experience, & context. I’ll hit this a little more with the next Q/A.

From the community:

• “Long-term engagement and customer loyalty. Once you bring someone into your ecosystem, do they want to stick around?” @emmaemail
• “With #SMARTgoals you’ll never have to wonder if an experience is in line w/ your campaign goals, you already mapped it out!” @BruceKennedy1
• “Truly meaningful experiences don’t end — the relationship will continue to grow. And THAT is how you measure your success.” @ImAGirl_YouKnow

See all the great answers to question 2 here!

Q3: How do you know what data is meaningful data and what isn’t?

From Kate:

• Well, generally speaking, data isn’t meaningful by itself, it’s meaningful in context. So you have to understand the context to understand what will be meaningful within it.
• I think a great parallel framework is in Jim Collins’ classic Good to Great, about finding your “profit-per-x denominator.”  It’s about knowing what truly makes your business grow. It isn’t profit, per se; it’s profit as relates to some other measure.
• Thinking dimensionally like that is how you grow meaningfully, and in a similar way. Thinking dimensionally about what makes an experience meaningful helps you shape them that way.
• E.g. not profit per purchase, but profit per purchase or profit per repeat purchaser. Something more meaningful than profit.

From the community:

• “Create well defined goals / measurements and the stream of data that would help you focus on right dataset.” @BGelbendorf
• “If it impacts your customer and your business’s future decisions.” @jenfwright
• “Determine the key performance indicators by what is important to your business mission/vision, bottom line.” @pjervis

See all the great answers to question 3 here!

Q4: What’s an example of how data can be used to impact someone’s experience?

From Kate:

• There’s a huge range of ways that it can happen, but in practice let’s boil it down to manual vs. automatic implementation.
• Data comes in passively through tracking; someone may see and recognize an opportunity, then manually change an experience. AND/OR data comes in and actively shapes experience through predictive means.
• Algorithms have been shaping experiences for years (even since my Netflix days), and AI will be doing this more and more.
• On that: for some time we’ll need humans and machines to collaborate, in a sense, to get the most out of both kinds of data.
• Our surroundings are increasingly shaped by data through IoT, wearables, beacons/sensors, self-driving cars, voice assistants.
• The opportunity for marketers, strategists, etc is to think holistically about experiences, campaigns, landing pages, whatnot.
• And how they fit this larger context, and design them with intention so they shape the experiences we really want to shape.

From the community:

• “You can use data to create a more personalised experience tailored to the wants, needs & context of the individual.” @NeilMilliken
• “Knowing what your audience or consumer needs and when to help before they even do.” @ItsJeffHiggins
• “Use data on your customer journey to improve process, perfect service, personalize, innovate, design thinking etc.” @CardozaGab

See all the great answers to question 4 here!

Q5: What do you do when your data tells you something different from your intuition?

From Kate:

• Ha, oh sure, that happens in a bunch of ways, right? All the time.
• If you’re, say, A/B testing a message & you’re SURE that one variant will win but another one does, you can do a few things. One is just run with it. Push the winner out, move on. But you can also see it as a learning experience, adding to knowledge.
• And here’s the thing: that’s what marketing is. Or should be. Marketing is at its best when it’s a knowledge center. Marketing should be the repository of knowledge about customers, market, competitive landscape, trends, culture, everything. All parts of the organization should contribute to that collection of knowledge, & all parts of the org should draw from it. Experience design, data strategy, all customer interactions need to inform and be informed by this body of knowledge.
• That’s how I think it works best in the ideal, but it’s hard to make that happen in practice.
• It takes an iterative, disciplined approach to learning and cultural change in most orgs to make them eventually resemble it.

From the community:

• “You have to remember, that while data may not tell the whole picture, it doesn’t lie. All you can is ?? how it was gathered.” @Renoe
• “If your intuition is wrong, it becomes a learning opportunity; what is different, how can you evolve and adjust as a result?” @JMattMke
• “That’s the point! Drill down and get to the root of what’s causing the variance, then question EVERYTHING.” @maxthemarketer

See all the great answers to question 5 here!

Q6: What do you do when the data reveals something undesirable?

From Kate:

• Well, the easy, obvious answer is to follow the money and pivot towards the successful outcome. But… you do have the choice to go with what you wish that data had shown. But now you know what it’s costing you to do that.
• If you prefer the alternative, like if somehow what you perceive as the integrity of the brand means more to you than the incremental lift or hit you’ll get from aligning with what the data shows, that’s a choice you actually can make.
• I had a CEO client do that once. In a big redesign, there was an issue with getting all the landing pages redone & launched, and he wanted to introduce a more unified landing page template than what had evolved over time with the previous designs.
• So we tested the impact of doing that, and it turned out it’d be a pretty big cost over the time it would take to optimize. But since he understood the costs we presented to him, he decided to take the hit for the sake of brand consistency.
• There was nothing irrational about that CEO’s decision: he had the data, he knew the tradeoffs, he made the call. I love that story now, because it really shows how misleading the phrase “data-driven” can be. Data doesn’t have to *drive* your decisions, per se; it really should just inform them.
• Data can be really empowering if you don’t feel limited by it or bound to it.

From the community:

• “Learn from it. We tend to always seek data that confirms assumptions, but the learning is in finding something unexpected.” @maikegrk
• “Data can really help you to change anything undesirable because you’ll know the root cause and can prevent it in the future.” @wanderwomanmoe
• “Go back to look at overall trends. There’s comfort in seeing how far you’ve come, even if there’s a recent dip in results.” @mindvolt

See all the great answers to question 6 here!

Q7: What are great resources for learning more about collecting meaningful data?

From Kate:

• Jim Collins’ business classic Good to Great is a must-read anyway but especially the bit on profit-per-x denominator. (image from tweet here)
• That screenshot is from this article about the “hedgehog concept” which is an excerpt from the book.
• And, of course, I’ll add: read my book. Please. ? Pixels and Place: Connecting Human Experience Across Physical and Digital Spaces
• There’s a passage about measuring meaningful experiences across digital and physical spaces that applies here: [see excerpt here]
• All of this to say: It’s worth all of us thinking more deeply about. The easy measures are rarely most insightful.
• We can do better to create more meaningful experiences, and we should. With AI growing, our future depends on it, no kidding.
• Last thought: I often say “analytics are people.” It’s important to remember the human needs in the data you’re optimizing. ❤️

From the community:

• “Relevant to our use of Buffer @OutYouth – Loving this book on #nonprofit #socialmedia measurement: ‘Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World‘. ” @thelonestardiva
• “Analytics for social and Google, plus case studies from @marketingcharts and tips from @ZestisApp and @GrowthHackers ?.” @Pacific54
• “No shortage of FREE online courses from great institutions on survey methodology, data collection/cleaning/analysis #AskAPhD.” @ARoberts021

See all the great suggestions for question 7 here!

Thank you so much to Kate and our awesome community for sharing such great insights in this chat!

Do you have any comments or answers to these questions? Leave your thoughts in the comments! We’d love to hear from you!

Image sources: UnSplash

How do you know what’s working with your social media? And what’s not working?

The social networks provide us with a ton of data about our posts but it can be hard to distinguish the signals from the noise.

Imagine having a framework to pull out the signals from the noise — a framework that points you to the key information about your social media performance. With this framework, you can easily identify successful posts and understand why they did well.

The key is social media analytics and reporting! ?

In this post, you’ll learn how to analyze, evaluate, and use your social media data to boost and report your social media marketing results — from exporting your data to creating benchmarks, to finding your best times to post.

7 Tips for Getting Better Social Media Results by Using Data

To give you a quick overview of what we’ll go through in this post, here are the seven tips:

1. 1. Create quick reports with spreadsheets
   2. Set benchmarks for your performance
   3. Measure total engagement
   4. Add context to the data you pull
   5. Find out your best time to post
   6. Reuse your top posts
   7. Engage influencers who shared your content

Most of the tips use data from Buffer, which can be exported with a Buffer for Business plan. We’d love for you to give it a try for free if you haven’t tried it before. You can also get most of the data and graphs for free directly from Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights.

1. Create quick reports with spreadsheets

The most powerful tool in your toolbox: The data export

For the longest time, I was scared of a data export. What’s a .csv? What do I do with it once I have it? Exports gave me more questions than answers. I was frozen.

/cue ”Let it go” soundtrack!

Fortunately, my Buffer friends came to the rescue! I picked up some awesome tips from the community on the power of data exports.

I’d love to share the highlights!

First, export your data.
You can get an export of your data from any screen in the analytics section of your Buffer dashboard. Bonus: You can grab data from any date range imaginable; the defaults are 7 days, 30 days, and 90 days, with an option to set a custom date range, too.

(The Export option is part of our Buffer for Business plan. You can also grab free data exports from Facebook and Twitter themselves.)

Next, import the data into a Google Sheet, or open the data in Excel.

Next, set a baseline.

Once your stats are out of Buffer, Facebook, or Twitter and into a spreadsheet, consider removing any outliers from the dataset.

For instance, in Buffer’s case, we have a lot of #bufferchat tweets on Twitter, and these aren’t necessarily part of the social media marketing posts that we’d love to analyze. We throw out the viral hits, too — yay for them, they just kind of throw off the rest of our averages. ?

Then run the averages and the medians to find your baseline.

(The median finds the middle value in a set of numbers, which can be helpful if the data still has any outliers.)

Next, find the rates.
There are a couple of rates that are key for us at Buffer: social media stats per impression and per follower.

For instance, is a post a success if it gets 100 clicks? Maybe. Depends on how many people saw it, right! This is where stats per impression comes into play.

We can do the same with stats per followers, which ends up being a useful measure for comparing different networks like Twitter to Instagram. If we have 100 engagements on an average Instagram post and we have 5,000 Instagram followers, that might be an amazing area for us to double-down — especially if we know our Twitter average is 100 engagements per tweet with 400,000 Twitter followers!

Here’s one way that we’ve heard it explained to us:

• Crawling: Stats per day, e.g. total clicks
• Walking: Stats per post, e.g. average clicks
• Running: Stats per impression/follower, e.g. click rate

Act now:

Here’re some templates to get you started with analyzing all the stats mentioned here: baselines, engagement, rates, and more.

• Basic baseline template: Likes, reshares, mentions, clicks, and impressions
• Template for total engagement: All the above plus engagement
• Template for rates: All the above plus rates (stats per impression and per follower)

If you prefer following a video, here’s a quick 7-minute walk-through on how to build a simple social media report with your data.

2. Set benchmarks for your performance

Benchmarks can be aspirational, earned, traditional, and competitive

One thing we’ll often ask ourselves – just today even – when looking through our social media stats is this:

So … is that good?

We’re always on the hunt for answers here, and one of our latest tactics has made analyzing our social media updates a million times faster and smarter — not to mention saved us an hour a day on our social media processes.

Here’s the key: Setting benchmarks for what makes a good post.

And here’s how we’ve gone about it:

Once you have your social media data in your spreadsheet (steps 1 to 3 of Tip 1), run this formula on each of the stat columns that matter to you; Likes, clicks, comments, etc.:

=AVERAGE(your data).

Awesome, now that you’ve got your average, we like to bump ours up slightly so that the benchmark is a bit aspirational. To the moon!

=(average)*1.5

And just like that, you’ve set yourself a benchmark!

Now, when you’re scrolling through your Buffer history, you can see at-a-glance which posts have gone above and beyond your benchmark. You can recognize your best posts in a second or less!

How frequently should you re-examine your benchmarks?

Great question! I tend to rethink my benchmarks anytime I’m noticing that I’m reaching the benchmark more often than I’m not. It’s a rather soft science! I’m sure you’ll have a great intuition on when it feels best to bump the benchmark up. ?

Act now:

This all just scratches the surface of what benchmarks can mean for you and your organization. We’ve written a full 2,000 words on the topic in case you’re at all interested in more. Here’s a link to the full article:

So…Is That Good? The Complete Beginner’s Guide to Benchmarking on Social Media

3. Evaluate your social media performance

Total engagement and other fun social media stats

We all might have our favorite actors, favorite foods, and favorite places. I have a sense the same is true for favorite social media stats!

(For me, it’s Jennifer Lawrence, pizza, the ski slopes, and total engagement.)

Certain stats are more important to some people than they are to others.

For instance, do you care deeply for traffic? Do you feel strongly for building awareness? Is tracking revenue a major key to your success?

I’d love to share a couple ideas here, including the one stat that everyone loves and the one stat that everyone wishes came easier.

The stat everyone loves: Total engagement

Total engagement is the sum of all interactions on your post: clicks, reshares, comments, and Likes. It is the social media analyst’s peanut butter sandwich. Almost everyone loves it.

Finding total engagement is as simple as adding up the interactions on a post. In your data spreadsheet, make an extra column in the spreadsheet to sum the number of clicks, reshares, comments, and Likes of each post.

There are several social media analytics tools that automatically calculate total engagement for you, which can save you some time. We’re working hard to show you your total engagement right within your Buffer dashboard. Stay tuned! ?

The stat everyone longs for: Revenue from social

It’s our white whale!

How do you even go about tracking revenue from social? It’s not as straightforward as some of the other stats like engagement or clicks. Still, it’s possible! Here’re the tools and steps we’ve found to work:

• Buffer to set your UTMs
• Google Analytics to crunch the revenue numbers

Here’s a quick run-through of the steps:

Step 1: Set your UTMs the way you want them in Buffer under Settings > Link Shortening.

Step 2: Head into Google Analytics and set up Ecommerce or Goals.

Step 3: After a day or two, head back to Google Analytics and get a traffic report by going to Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels > Social.

Step 4: Add the conversion goals to your data table, and voila, you’ll see the revenue!

(Our report is showing $0 as we have been using another tool, Looker, instead of Google Analytics, to track revenue from social.)

The Google Analytics stuff can sometimes be a bit tricky for me! Haha, okay – most of the time it’s tricky for me! I’ll often head for help at YouTube. There are some really great tutorials there!

Act now:

And of course, these two ways — total engagement and revenue — just scratch the surface of all that’s possible with evaluating your social media content. We’ve written an article that covers a bit more of the iceberg. We’d love for you to take a peek!

5 Unique Ways to Measure and Evaluate a Social Media Campaign

4. Add context to the data you pull

How do you even do that?

Social media be confusing sometimes, especially when you’re down in the day-to-day of it and struggling to see the bigger picture.

Looking at the larger trends of your social performance is hugely helpful for seeing how strategies are playing out.

In particular, there’s this post written by the Intercom team that I just adore when it comes to trends. Here’s a key graphic from the post:

The tl;dr – Data is great, especially data with context!

To start with, it’s useful to have the trends data in front of you.

We’re hoping to make this as easy as pie for you and your team with the Analysis Report. To find your Analysis Report, head to the Analytics tab in your Buffer dashboard and click on “Analysis”.

In this report, you’ll see the trend of your key social media metrics such as clicks, Likes, reshares, and followers.

Act now:

And then once you’re seeing the trends, there’re a few questions that might be great to ask:

• What caused any spikes or valleys?
• When will we reach the next milestone?
• Where will we be in the next (x) days or months?
• What factors are we not accounting for?

For example, for the graphs above, the spike in Likes was caused by a tweet that took off while the spikes in clicks were due to the launch of our new online social media strategy class.

Quick tip: You can click on any point on the graphs to zoom in on that date and see the posts published on that date. This is great for finding out which post(s) caused the spike.

I’m just now realizing that it might be a bit hard to answer “What factors are we not accounting for?” Kind of like asking you to know what you don’t know! If it’s helpful, here’re some of the factors I’m often overlooking on accident:

• Weekends
• Holidays
• Seasonality
• Most popular times to share on social (9 AM to 5 PM New York time)
• Big announcements or campaigns

5. Find your best time to post

There’s no one ideal time to post in 2017. It’s all unique to your brand.

We used to think there’s a universal best time to post.

Not anymore.

Instead, we believe every brand has its own set of best times to post. Here’re some tips on how to find time:

How to find the best times to post on Facebook

In your Facebook Page Insights, Facebook shows you when your Facebook fans are online.

With the algorithmic News Feed, the timing of your Facebook post might be less important but I feel there’s still utility in finding the best posting times to generate initial engagement — early signs of a quality content which might cause Facebook’s algorithm to show your post to more people.

There are generally two schools of thought about best Facebook posting times. The first is to post when your fans are most active on Facebook so that there’s a higher chance of them seeing and interacting with your posts. The second is to post when your fans are least active as there is less competition for the limited space on users’ News Feed.

I’d recommend experimenting with both ideas to see which works better for your brand. For example, we have been seeing some success with posting during off-peak hours.

To get this data, head to your Facebook Page > Insights > Posts > When Fans Are Online.

How to find the best times to post on Twitter

Since Twitter still uses a reverse-chronological timeline, finding the optimal posting times is still very relevant.

While Twitter Analytics does not provide similar followers’ activity data, Twitter tools like Followerwonk and Tweriod can tell you when your followers are most active.

It’s generally believed that if you tweet when your followers are most active, there’s a higher chance that they’d see your tweets. Having said that, I’d still recommend experimenting with different times using the data you have.

There’s also a way to find out the best times to post based on how your tweets have performed in the past. It would require you to dig into your Twitter Analytics using spreadsheets. If you’re keen, here’s a guide on how to do that.

Act now:

With these data, you could experiment with different posting times to see if you can achieve better results. An experimental Twitter schedule, with five posting times, could look something like this:

• Three posting times in the three most active hours
• Two posting times in the two least active hours

6. Reuse your top posts

Repeat your successes by republishing them after a few weeks

So, one of your tweets is taking off. Likes, retweets, and replies are rolling in. What should you do?

(First, celebrate, of course!)

To maximize the value of that tweet, you can consider republishing it — ideally with a different copy several days or weeks later. If you repeat this flow for a while, you can build up a nice repository of social media posts — that have proven to be great — to fall back on whenever you are having a social media manager’s block.

It’s good to remember that all networks are different. Generally, you can publish the same content more frequently on Twitter than on Facebook and more frequently on Facebook than on Instagram. For example, you could republish a piece of content a few days later on Twitter but you might want to give it a few weeks on Facebook and a few months on Instagram before republishing.

We’re hoping that one of the fastest ways to find your top-performing posts (across the networks) is in the Posts Report of your Buffer Analytics. At a glance, you can see the various types of engagement generated by each post. You can also sort them by a particular type of engagement such as retweets.

You can also get similar data from Twitter Analytics (Tweets > Top Tweets) and Facebook Insights (Posts > All Post Published > Sort by Reach or Engagement).

When you are lacking inspirations for new tweets, you can head to your Posts Report and grab a top post from several weeks or months back. For example, here’s what we did:

Step 1: Set the timeframe as 90 Days or set a custom timeframe if you want to go even further back.

Step 2: Sort your posts by a form of engagement such as retweets, Likes, or clicks. Here, I chose retweets.

Step 3: Pick a post from a few weeks back and hit “Re-Buffer”.

Here’s the post we republished (originally published last December). The original tweet received 133 Likes, 135 retweets, and one reply while the republished tweet received 134 Likes, 134 retweets, and 3 replies!

Act now:

We wrote a full blog post, a while back, on the power of republishing the same content and the ways we reframed our republished content in case you’re interested in more. Here’s the link to the full article:

Why You Should Share Your Blog Post More Than Once on Social Media: The Case for Reposting Content

7. Engage influencers who shared your content

The tools to find influencers

Here’s a fun thought: At this very moment, an influencer — someone with a significant social media following — might be sharing your content.

Wow, that’d be a powerful bit of information to celebrate with a boss or client or team!

Not to mention a virtual high-five for all your hard work. ?

You can find out this information in a handful of ways:

• Referral report in Google Analytics (bonus: sometimes folks will even mention themselves in a UTM)
• Alert tools like Mention and Warble
• Twitter advanced search for your URL

We’re hoping that one of the easiest methods might be the one waiting for you in your Buffer dashboard. We’ve added a new Influencer Report for your Twitter profiles, where you can see who has shared any of your URLs on social, ranked by the number of followers each person has.

Act now:

So if you published a blog post yesterday and wanted to thank the folks who had shared it since, just plug it into the tool and see the results. You can click on “View tweet” to pull up the tweet and reply the influencer.

(There’s another layer to this, too. If you click the retweets in your Buffer stats, you’ll get a list of everyone who has retweeted you — and you can follow back and click through to their profile right from the Buffer dashboard.)

What is your favorite analytics trick?

There are so many things you can do with your social media data, and I’m sure I barely scratched the surface with these seven tips. I’d love to learn from you and hear about your favorite analytics tip or trick!

How do you use your social media data? How has that helped you with your social media performance?

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Image credit: Unsplash