The social media numbers worth watching
Social analytics fails by abundance. Every platform offers dozens of metrics, none of them wrong, and the result is a monthly report nobody acts on because no number in it demands an action.
Six numbers, reported the same way for a year, are worth more than forty reported once.
The six#
| Number | What it answers |
|---|---|
| Reach or views | Are we being seen at all? |
| Saves and shares | Did the content earn anything? |
| Profile visits | Did it make anyone curious? |
| Link clicks | Did anyone take the next step? |
| Enquiries or sales from social | Did it produce business? |
| Posts published | Did we actually do the work? |
Why posts published belongs on the list#
It is the only number entirely within your control, and it explains most bad months. A quarter with poor results and thirty per cent fewer posts is not a content problem; it is a production problem, and the fix is different.
Track output alongside outcome. Half of what looks like declining performance is declining publishing.
Reading the numbers together#
- High reach, low saves: entertaining, not useful. Fine occasionally, not as a diet.
- Low reach, high saves: the content is good and few people saw it — worth promoting.
- High clicks, no enquiries: the destination page is the problem, not the post.
- Everything flat, posts down: production, not content.
Comparisons that are honest#
Compare with your own previous quarter and the same month last year. Do not compare with published industry averages: they mix categories, audience sizes and definitions, and they exist mostly to make somebody's benchmarking product look useful.
Frequently asked questions
How often should we look at analytics?
Monthly for reporting, quarterly for decisions. Weekly checks mostly produce anxiety and premature changes.
Is engagement rate useful?
As a rough comparison between your own posts, yes. Across brands it is close to meaningless.
Why do platform numbers differ from ours?
Different definitions and attribution windows. Pick one source per question and stop reconciling.
social media analyticssocial media metricsmeasuring social mediaengagement ratesocial media reporting
