Measuring social media metrics is important for understanding the performance of your respective Pages no matter what industry you are in. With advanced measurement reporting of social Pages, companies in markets throughout the world can identify business problems and resolve these problems from the valuable insights gained from analytical tools. However, the problems that companies face are vastly different from industry to industry. This report will focus on how proper social media measurement can help resolve business problems for media companies.
Media companies face slightly different business problems than the majority of other private industries, however, the end goals remain the same. Just as retail or CPG brands are concerned with increasing brand awareness, media companies are concerned with recognition of their media outlets (I.e. Television channel, newspaper name, etc.) or their company as a whole. Social media is an extremely beneficial tool for media companies, and if used correctly there are multiple ways in which they can reap the benefits of connecting with new audiences. However, media companies need to remain truly diligent on executing a flawless social media strategy and correctly measure social KPIs, otherwise, there is a high risk of damaging the company’s reputation or image.
Important social media KPIs for media companies
Response Rate: The percentage of user posts or questions that the admin responded to.
Response Time: The average amount of time that it takes for the admin to respond to user posts or questions.
Engagement Rate: The amount of user interactions (Likes, comments and shares) that occur with your Page.
Key Influencer Identification: Identifying the users that most frequently interact with your Page’s content.
User Activity: Identifying the times of days and the days of week in which your users are most engaging most frequently with your Page.
Distribution of Fans: Identifying which countries your Fans are from.
Social Media Measurement: Business Solutions
Channel or Company Recognition
Crisis Management
Media Channel Loyalty
Subscriber Feedback
Linking business solutions to social media measurement KPIs
Media Channel Loyalty
In an industry that relies heavily on the loyalty of its subscribers, tracking social media KPIs are critical for understanding the content in which your subscriber base is interested. By measuring engagement rates of links or videos that are published on your social channels, media companies can optimize future content to fit the demands of its audience. Additionally, understanding subscriber demographics will help to determine the optimal times to publish content and, once again, identify the content that your audience finds engaging.
The importance of Fan engagement: It is important for every media company to understand, monitor, and increase Fan engagement rates for published content. Media companies across the board should be focusing on increasing two types of Fan engagement, the share ratio and the number of comments. The share ratio is critical because it is the number one indicator that portrays whether your audience is interested or disinterested in this type of content. In addition, increasing a share ratio directly correlates with an increase in channel or company recognition. Each time a Fan shares a published piece, it will appear in a percentage (this percent varies due to frequent changes in Facebook’s algorithm) of their Friends’ newsfeeds. Monitoring and encouraging user comments is important because content with a high number of comments is also an indicator of Fan interest. We recommend that you participate in these comment threads in order to stimulate conversation and Fan engagement.
Why you should measure social KPIs: Media companies need to measure multiple social KPIs in order to maintain and increase loyalty amongst its channel or company subscribers. As previously mentioned, tracking Fan engagement is critical for understanding the content that is most interesting amongst its Fan base. However, the measurement doesn’t stop there. Media companies also need to obtain as much demographic information about their social community as possible. This includes identifying the country distribution of its Fans, the times of days and days of week in which its users are most active, the content that key influencers that are most engaged with, and content that drives Fan growth rates. All of these metrics are critical for determining the most effective content for maintaining channel loyalty and increasing channel recognition.
Most important KPIs: Channel Loyalty
Engagement Rates
Share Ratio
Key Influencer Identification
User Activity Data
Channel or Company Recognition
Social media has granted media companies the ability to access new audiences, unlike any outlet previously available. By properly using social media, companies can gain recognition with audiences and markets that often were previously inaccessible. The capability of accessing new audiences and markets via social media is extremely valuable for increasing channel or company recognition and directly correlates with a higher number of new subscribers.
The importance of the share ratio: Monitoring and increasing the share ratio should be a social goal for every media company. Foremost, having a higher share ratio will directly affect the reach of each published piece.
Secondly, a higher share ratio will result in new channel subscribers, often of a different demographic or even from a different market than your core audience. Lastly, a higher share ratio will positively affect your Facebook Edgerank score, which is important for any company concerned with increasing social effectiveness.
Why you should measure social KPIs: In order to have a higher rate of new subscribers, media companies need to increase the recognition surrounding their channel or company. Media companies should monitor social KPIs that are measuring Fan engagement, growth, activity, and demographics to understand the best tactics for connecting with their current channel subscribers and for attracting new subscribers.
Most Important KPIs: Channel or Company Recognition
Engagement Rates
Fan Growth Rates
Share Ratio
Key Influencer Identification
User Activity Data
Editor's Note: This article was originally published on socialbakers.com. Any statistics or statements included in this article were current at the time of original publication.
