Social Engagement: What Is It, Why It Matters and How to Measure It?
Everyone wants to go social these days, and they should, because that’s where your audience is. Once you’re there, measuring social efforts is important to ensure you keep people engaged. But, do you know what social engagement is? Or, if it’s giving you the results you expect?
What is Social Engagement?
Social engagement is basically the process of engaging or communicating within an online community. There are many platforms where conversations can be held, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, as well as blogs and review sites. The idea of social engagement is for businesses to stay in contact with their customers, promote their brand, and provide better customer service.
Did you know that when companies continuously engage with their audience and provide customer service over social media, it results in those customers spending from 20% to 40% more money on their products and services? True story. This is why social engagement matters. It can help increase traffic, boost brand awareness, and give your brand a voice.
Measuring Social Engagement
The concept of “engagement” can sometimes be a little hard to grasp. What does it mean, anyway? It refers to the interactions with your brand. Although every social network —including your blog— is different, there are metrics that apply to all of them, however, the level of engagement can vary from platform to platform. Here are the three most important social engagement metrics:
Conversation Rate
This refers to the number of conversations per post. That means tweets for Twitter, and comments for all other networks, like Facebook, IG, and Pinterest.
Applause Rate
The term ‘applause’ kind of makes you think of likes, doesn’t it? Liking a post is pretty much the virtual equivalent of applauding it or showing appreciation for it. Although, they are not called “likes” on every social network, except for Facebook and Instagram. Twitter has favorites, Google + has a +1, and even blogs have a way to show appreciation, which is usually a thumbs up. To summarize, the applause rate refers to the amount of “likes” a post gets.
Amplification Rate
Finally, the amplification rate considers every time a post is retweeted, repinned or re-shared since it’s truly being “amplified”.
To effectively manage social media, it’s not just about posting and forgetting about it. You also need to analyze the data and let it tell you what to work on, in order to improve engagement. This might sound like a lot, but it all gets so much easier when you work with experts in the area like Impressions Agency. We can take care of all this for you, while you manage all other important areas of your business. Want to work with us? Contact us for more information. We would love to work with you and help you achieve your business goals.