We love benchmarking as a measure of social media success; here’s why you should too.
Your recent Facebook post got 20 likes, that’s great, or is it? Well, that depends.
Based on your previous activity, the number of followers or fans you have, and other important factors, this number could mean a myriad of things. Here at Victory Media, we’ve learned it can be challenging to draw concrete conclusions about your social media performance by looking at these numbers on their own, free of context; that’s where benchmarking comes in.
Benchmarking is a way of looking at your social media metrics with a meaningful standard. When used correctly, it allows you to determine the success of a social media update—a Facebook post, a Tweet, an Instagram photo, and even sponsored or promotional posts—at-a-glance, in comparison to another, pre-determined, metric.
Where do I start?
Benchmarking isn’t one size fits all. Based on your goals, and your social media plan, you should decide which data matters most to your overall social media strategy. Is your goal to gain brand awareness, to build your audience, or to engage with your audience? Depending on your priorities, certain social media metrics will be of more importance than others.
When it comes to benchmarking, simplicity is key. Concentrate on the highest level metrics like number of followers or fans, overall engagement (all likes, shares, comments, replies and clicks), the reach or impressions of your content (the number of people who see your page/posts), website visits, and even number of leads (or conversions) from social media.
Once you’ve determined which metrics matter most to you, get started with these strategies:
Compete against yourself.
As with most things in life, the goal of benchmarking is to improve over time. That’s why the best place to start is by taking a look at your own data, and identifying a standard that you want to achieve based on these numbers. From there, you can set goals and projections based on your own history.
Posting a behind-the-scenes selfie of your staff? Take a look at the number of likes, comments, and shares the last one received, and aim to surpass it.
For campaigns and promotions, past predicts future.
Similarly, when dealing with campaigns and promotions, you can take a look at past metrics in order to set up your benchmark. Since these posts differ in message and objective from the content you share regularly, they should be measured against a different standard.
Refer to how your campaigns have performed in the past, and compare future efforts against this standard for success. For example, if a past sponsored post about a clinic promotion performed extremely well on Facebook, use it as a benchmark for determining the success of the next; aim to match or surpass the results achieved.
It’s all in the family (or industry).
While competing against yourself is a good place to start, you should also be aware of trends and successes in your industry. Chances are you know who your direct competitors or influencers are in your niche or industry; keep a close eye on them. Setting goals for performance and growth based on these accounts will motivate you to perform better and help you plan.
One of the easiest benchmarks to set this way is, of course, followers. Take a look at other pages and profiles in your industry to determine an average follower count, and you’ve got your benchmark for followers on your own. From there, start making note of how their tweets and posts are performing based on the metrics that matter to you (how many likes are they getting? how many comments, retweets, or shares?), and use those numbers as goals for your own campaigns.
Facebook offers a free feature called “pages to watch” under the insights tab. This is a great way to watch a few of your competitors for inspiration on Facebook. What are they doing that works? What can you do better? Here’s a great article outlining how to add this feature to your Facebook account.
Dream big.
The sky’s the limit right? Benchmarks don’t always have to be immediately realistic. Don’t be afraid to peek at the performance of industry leaders—whether that be the bigger practice down the road, or the national leader in your industry—and set goals that you aspire to achieve long term. These big dreams can help you craft an ongoing strategy that will help get you where you want to be.
With these strategies in your arsenal, you’ll know exactly what it means when your next Facebook post gets 20 likes.
