The rise of global social media engagement is significant: a large segment of the population already describes themselves as “chronically online,” and some groups are continuing to increase their time on social platforms. According to the Sprout Social Index™, 30% of social media users are planning to dedicate more time to these platforms in 2025, while 56% anticipate at least retaining their current usage levels.
Although not all audiences leverage social media to connect with businesses, a considerable number do. The Sprout Social Index highlights the essential role social networks play for brands:
- 93% of consumers believe it’s crucial for brands to engage with online culture
- 90% of consumers utilize social media to stay informed about trends
- Shoppers often turn to social media for research when they aim to make purchases within the next month
Regardless of your industry, there’s a clear social media return on investment (ROI), but to grasp the specific impact on your business, tracking the appropriate social media metrics and KPIs is vital. That’s where we step in—through this article, you’ll gain insights into social media KPIs, how to define the relevant ones, and which KPIs to monitor based on your marketing targets.
Bonus Resource: Utilize our social media KPI template and guide to set smarter KPIs. Discover what drives results, eliminate distractions, and prioritize efforts that yield measurable outcomes.
What are social media KPIs and metrics?
KPI stands for key performance indicator. It’s a term used in business that extends beyond just social media marketing. In this guide, our focus will solely be on social media KPIs.
KPIs are the metrics you review to determine if your strategy is effective and achieving your objectives. Single metrics and KPIs alone don’t provide the complete picture. By contextualizing your data through a combination of several KPIs, you’ll better understand whether you are hitting your targets.
The KPIs outlined in this article are categorized by type. To access most of these metrics, you’ll need a business account on each social media platform. The analytics section will supply the required data, or you can utilize tools like Sprout Social to consolidate the social media analytics you need without having to pull them from various networks individually.
How to establish social media KPIs & metrics
Before that, let’s discuss how to determine the right social media KPIs to ensure you are monitoring the most crucial metrics and analytics. Your KPIs should be directly connected to your business objectives.
Here are several tips for identifying the appropriate social media KPIs to follow.
Identify your social media objectives
Your social media objectives act as your guiding principle amid the ever-changing landscape of platforms and trends. What do you aim to achieve with your strategy? These should align with the broader business objectives determined by your company’s CEO, sales team, and/or marketing team.
For instance, if your organization aims to increase its audience and brand visibility, your social media objectives are likely to concentrate on reach. Conversely, if your goal is to drive more leads and sales, your social media objectives should focus on conversions.
This article has organized the social media KPIs by the specific social media goal they support, enabling you to choose the most suitable KPIs and metrics to assess performance and overall impact.
Consider your company’s growth stage
For those working in a relatively new startup, while sales are essential, enhancing reach, increasing engagement, and concentrating on building a community is advantageous for long-term social media and business growth. Startups will also seek market validation, thus KPIs and metrics related to customer feedback become critical.
In contrast, established businesses may prioritize conversions and the costs linked to acquiring them through social networks.
Select a few KPIs to track
It’s important to remember: KPIs can serve as metrics, but not every metric qualifies as a KPI. You might measure a wide range of social media metrics to gauge your overall performance.
However, your KPIs will be directly connected to your business’s financial performance. Choose only a handful that significantly clarify whether your social media initiatives support your business goals.
For example, if your business goals are centered around social media sales, you’ll want to track metrics like follower counts and website traffic. Yet, your KPIs should relate to the sales volume per platform, total revenue, or cost per acquisition.
Select KPIs that demonstrate social media ROI
To enhance your social media program, you’ll require support from decision-makers within your organization. Leaders controlling budget allocations need concrete, quantifiable impacts to validate increased investment in resources and campaigns. The most effective way to showcase the value of social media is through reporting that emphasizes the influence these networks have. KPIs that connect social activities to the sales funnel and revenue can illustrate ROI in a manner that resonates with business leaders.
At Sprout, we improved our reporting by adopting a multi-attribution model. This method allowed leadership to see the comprehensive impact of social.
By transitioning to a data storytelling approach that acknowledged the multiple consumer touchpoints involving social media, we attributed an additional 5,800% of pipeline impact to our campaigns. Metrics like earned media value and cost per lead provide concrete evidence of how social sustains our customer pipeline.
Social media KPIs for reach
How can you determine whether your marketing messages and campaigns are reaching the right audience? What is the extent of your message’s dissemination? Reach serves as an overarching term for the total number of individuals who encounter your social media profiles and posts. It also encompasses the possible audience your marketing message could engage.
Follower count
This key metric reveals how many accounts are tracking your brand. Different platforms feature their own versions of followers or fans. These figures are generally visible on your profile page and can also be found through your social media management tool.
Impressions
Social media impressions differ from social media reach. Impressions indicate how often a post or profile has been viewed. This metric does not differentiate between unique accounts; it simply totals the views. Therefore, if one account sees the same post four times, that would count as four impressions.
Various types of impressions exist depending on the network. For instance, on Pinterest, you can check impressions per Pin, whereas on Instagram, you can view impressions for both posts and Stories.
Post reach
In social media terminology, post reach (a more detailed metric compared to the general category of reach) signifies the number of unique accounts that viewed your post. Referring back to the previous point, when that one account sees the same post four times, the post reach still counts as one.
Post reach is typically located in the same analytics section as post impressions. Due to the differences highlighted, post reach generally will be less than impressions. For example, you might find that a post reachable by 10 unique accounts generated 50 impressions.
Reach can be approximately calculated by dividing the number of impressions by your follower total. It’s also often readily accessible for certain platforms and achievable through a social media analytics tool.
Web traffic
Web traffic serves as a valuable metric for assessing the performance of your posts that link to your website. It further serves as a reliable measure of campaign effectiveness. Web referral traffic quantifies the instances someone clicks a link on your social media profile leading to one of your website pages.
This information is available in Google Analytics or through any website builder you might be using.
This metric is beneficial for several aspects:
- Evaluating the reception of a blog post on social media
- Measuring the success of promotions conducted exclusively through social media
- Analyzing campaigns when using a landing page shared via social networks
Share of voice
Share of voice (SOV) provides insights into your online visibility in relation to competitors. This metric isn’t readily accessible in native analytics; instead, you need to select specific keywords, hashtags, or categories to monitor. For example, if you want to track your SOV related to coffee, you would compile a list of relevant hashtags and keywords.
Next, you would employ a tool to collect data on how often your brand is mentioned in connection with those terms relative to the total frequency of mentions. Without a consistent social media reporting system, this comparison can become complicated, such as when reviewing hashtags separately. Therefore, a tool like Sprout provides both hashtag and keyword reports for a more effective overview of your SOV.
Social media KPIs for engagement
With reach metrics, you’ll ascertain that your posts and accounts are being viewed. However, what metrics demonstrate audience actions? Are they merely viewing or are they interacting, clicking through posts, and sharing them?
Engagement on social media is crucial for a brand’s online success. A lack of engagement is akin to addressing a crowd that remains silent or simply walks by.
Clicks
Have you ever encountered an Instagram caption that was so captivating it compelled you to click for further details? Traditionally, clicks pertained to posts’ links but have since evolved with social media changes.
Clicks are ubiquitous. In the context of posts, a click could involve expanding an Instagram caption or tapping a tweet to view photos. There are also clicks registered on your Instagram profile page and those made to enlarge a Pin.
These figures are accessible through native analytics or summarized within a tool like Sprout. As you examine the social networks you are targeting, you’ll identify which clicks they monitor and their respective metric terminologies.
Likes
You’re likely familiar with the double-tap gesture on Instagram to express enjoyment for a photo. Likes and favorites signify that the account valued your post enough to engage with it. This KPI can be helpful to monitor for campaigns concentrated at the awareness level of the funnel.
Even though platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have hidden Like counts from public view, you can still access these numbers within your analytics.
Shares
Post and profile shares serve as excellent indicators of engagement, signifying that your post was compelling enough for your audience to share or forward it to others.
Shares may be referred to by different names across platforms. On Pinterest, they are called saves; on X (formerly Twitter), they are reposts; on Instagram, you have options to share via DMs or in a Story; and on both TikTok and Facebook, the action remains a share but offers various options. A high share total also indicates how viral a post has become.
Comments
Comments, alongside likes, are another essential interaction type present on every platform. Comments may be found on posts and livestreams. You can monitor these through Sprout or locate them in native analytics, either per post or aggregated for an overall total.
Similar to shares, comments are a strong indicator of an engaging post. Your comment tally can also reflect the capacity of your social media team or indicate areas that may require additional resources.
These are not just significant as metrics, but it’s vital to formulate a strategy to effectively manage social media comments, allowing you to connect with your audience through responses and interactions. For organizations using social media as a customer support channel, comments (in conjunction with mentions and messages) provide a crucial means to assess customer sentiment. Sentiment can be positive, neutral, or negative and assists customer service teams in comprehending what’s functioning well and where adjustments may be necessary.
Mentions
Mentions occur when an account tags your business account or discusses your brand. This can take place in a post, comment, story, or directly to you. Tracking this metric may not always be available natively, so a social media monitoring tool, like Sprout, may be needed to observe how and how frequently your brand’s accounts are mentioned.
According to a Sprout Social Pulse Survey, social media is the preferred channel for consumers discovering products. Your brand is being discussed, whether you are tracking it or not. To quantify your mentions, employ a brand keyword report to gauge the frequency of your brand’s presence online, whether officially tagged or not.
Profile visits
When individuals begin to familiarize themselves with your organization, they often take actions such as visiting your website, subscribing to your newsletter, and checking out your profile page. The profile visit count informs you how frequently your page is accessed within a specific timeframe. This metric is accessible through native analytics and serves as a reminder to keep your profile current with vital linking destinations.
Social media KPIs for conversions
Having tracked the results from your social media publishing efforts and knowing how audiences engage with you, what’s next? The subsequent phase in the marketing funnel is transforming these engagements into customers.
Sales revenue
When you sell products and promote them via your social media channels, you certainly want to assess whether all your hard work is yielding results. To determine your sales revenue, refer to your Google Analytics or website builder. You should be able to pinpoint which social media clicks translated into purchases and the total sales generated.
Numerous networks are now integrating e-commerce, allowing you to shop directly on the platform through posts or streams. For these situations, the numbers can usually be found within your shop analytics.
Lead conversion rate
The lead conversion rate indicates how effectively your social media strategy is functioning. Building trust with a customer takes time, but there are numerous ways to capture leads via social media. Although customers may not buy from you immediately upon seeing your product, they’ll be recorded as customers when they eventually do.
Google Analytics provides a means to track your lead conversion rate through social media. For some organizations, more sophisticated attribution models and tracking utilities might better align with their marketing funnel needs.
Non-revenue conversions
The final social media metric for conversion tracking focuses on non-revenue activities. This metric captures all actions that don’t involve a product or service purchase. It includes actions such as email newsletter signups, white paper downloads, or filling out a registration form. This conversion metric is defined by you—you determine what constitutes a conversion.
Social media KPIs for customer loyalty
Having a positive interaction on social media with a brand significantly affects customers, resulting in increased purchases and recommendations to friends.
Sprout’s latest research indicates that after a positive interaction with a brand, consumers are inclined to purchase from that brand (78%), choose that brand over competitors (77%), endorse the brand (76%), increase their spending (72%), and foster a deeper relationship (70%). All of these statistics illustrate how social media contributes to enhancing customer loyalty.
Issues resolved
Social media is becoming the preferred avenue for consumers to address service inquiries and issues. The resolved issues metric is not readily accessible within a native analytics dashboard. Instead, you will need to calculate this metric manually by tagging Instagram and Facebook DMs in their combined Inbox, or by utilizing Sprout’s Inbox Team Report for an in-depth view of your team’s message management effectiveness.
According to the Sprout Social Index™, nearly three-quarters (73%) of consumers affirm they would opt for a competitor if a brand fails to address their customer service queries on social media. Most expect a response within 24 hours or less.
To evaluate your responsiveness to issues, using a tool like Sprout that can report these metrics is essential. A shorter response time results in more satisfied customers, which in turn fosters customer loyalty. Focus on tracking metrics such as average first reply time, average reply wait time, and average handle time to comprehend how long customers wait for responses.
Customer lifetime value
Customer lifetime value (CLV) indicates the total dollar amount a customer is expected to spend with you over a specific timeframe. After the initial purchase, your goal is to nurture returning customers who will continue to buy. By employing effective customer loyalty strategies, you can achieve a higher customer lifetime value.
To calculate this metric, multiply the customer value by the average lifespan of a customer. Online CLV calculators can also assist in this process.
Social media KPIs to demonstrate ROI
Social media campaigns create impact throughout the business, ranging from brand visibility to revenue enhancement. These KPIs clarify the ROI of social media efforts.
Earned media value
Earned media value (EMV) offers a method to transform metrics like reach, interactions, and views into a dollar figure for comparison to your bottom line. However, with this KPI, subjectivity can complicate interpretation. EMV can be adapted and standardized for your particular organization. The key is to set a Cost Per Engagement (CPE)—for example, $0.50—for each interaction type (such as likes). You can also “weigh” engagement types if you wish to assign greater significance to shares compared to simple likes.
The computation of EMV requires some manual aggregation, but a social media management tool like Sprout can ease the process by providing a breakdown of likes, shares, etc., all in one location. Here’s a simplified example of how to calculate EMV:
Suppose you receive 100 likes, 50 comments, and 20 shares on a post.
If you assign weights of 1 to likes, 2 to comments, and 3 to shares.
- Likes: 100 likes x 1 x $0.50 = $50
- Comments: 50 comments x 2 x $0.50 = $50
- Shares: 20 shares x 3 x $0.50 = $30
Total EMV for the post: $50 + $50 + $30 = $130
When a post goes viral, EMV can become substantial. This is also a valuable KPI for gauging the success of influencer and employee advocacy initiatives.
Cost per action
For a comprehensive understanding of social media’s ROI, it’s essential to gauge your expenses for activities such as securing webinar registrations, obtaining downloads, or even achieving a single click on your post. Keeping your cost per action (CPA) minimal is a matter of selecting suitable platforms and crafting content that resonates with your audience.
To determine CPA, divide your total expenditure by the number of actions taken on the post. If you invested $100 on an Instagram advertisement that resulted in 25 actions (e.g., newsletter subscriptions), your CPA would be $4.
Cost per lead
The cost per lead KPI reflects the effectiveness of your advertising or lead generation strategy. Different companies and industries maintain varied benchmarks for cost per lead. A high cost per lead suggests adjustments may be necessary in your strategy, highlighting areas to enhance the allocation of your social marketing budget.
To ascertain the cost per lead, consult your social media ads. Cost per clicks and conversion expenses should be available in ad analytics. Ensuring that you have established your paid social strategy for optimal results is key. Pay attention to which of your ads reflect the lowest cost per lead and strategize on how to replicate effective methods across other areas.
Leads generated
A higher number of potential customers in your pipeline correlates with increased sales opportunities. Social media can generate leads via campaigns specifically aimed at achieving this or through captivating engagement across various types of content you share. Many CRMs include lead tracking functionalities. With diligent UTM tagging practices in Sprout, you can monitor leads produced in your preferred CRM. If utilizing Salesforce, Sprout’s Salesforce integration offers comprehensive analysis of your social media’s effect on the sales pipeline.
Implement social media KPIs to expand your business
Tracking social media KPIs is a crucial element of any social media marketing plan. Without measurement, it’s difficult to ascertain if you are reaching your business objectives. Utilize a social media marketing dashboard to oversee a blend of KPIs corresponding to the established goals.
For instance, knowing the number of comments, shares, and likes your posts attract allows you to track your total post engagement rate. This figure is likely to improve over time as you apply strategies designed to enhance engagement.
The future of customer service and business development lies in social media. Download our social media KPI template to gain insights into which KPIs to monitor at various funnel stages and for distinct business goals.
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