How well do you know your social media metrics?

Are you using them? If the answer is "not at all," then strap in!

"What gets measured, gets done." It's that simple.

Social media performance needs to be measured in order to truly know what content, engagement, and management tactics are working and which ones are not.

Without integrating Instagram or Facebook's metrics into your social media strategy, you're essentially flying blind, or at least visually impaired.

So let's go over the most useful terms you'll find in the Instagram insights tab and discuss how you can use them to assess your performance!

How to read social media insights

Instagram and Facebook insights are the main metrics you'll need to understand in order to tell if your account is performing better or worse than in the past.

Time periods

Time periods are the window of days you look back on to read your metrics. This setting is found on the top left of your insights menu.

It typically is set to "Last 7 Days" but can be changed to fit your needs dating back 3 months. It is important when keeping track of your progress over time that you use the same time period (# of days) to ensure you are comparing apples to apples.

As an example, if you want to compare performance month over month for 2023, on the first of every month, take note of your metrics for the last 30 days.

If you want a more granular look, you can also adjust to see weekly or bi-weekly time periods.

As long as you are consistent, your numbers can give you an accurate story.

Reach

This is the number of unique accounts that saw your post.

Reach is important because it measures how many people you could have potentially engaged with your content.

The higher this number is, the wider your sphere of influence can be.

Impressions

This is the number of times your post was seen, regardless of whether or not the view was from one account multiple times, or many accounts one time.

In most cases, impressions will be higher than reach because it includes views by duplicate accounts.

However, there are some exceptions such as when an account sees your post multiple times in their feed.

Average Views Per Account

When engagement is divided by reach, it gives you the average amount of times an account has seen your content in a given time period.

An old marketing rule says that it takes a person 7 times to see a brand before they start to connect with it, so use this metric and this rule to set your goals!

Social Media Engagement Metrics to Measure

While the basic metrics give you an idea of the amount of views, engagement metrics indicate the quality of those views.

Measuring social media engagement metrics

This is the total number of likes, comments, saves, and shares your posts receive.

The impact of this metric is fairly obvious; the more people engage with your content, the more likely you are to have higher quality content (from the algorithm's point of view) and a higher level of trust with your audience.

The higher your engagement number is, the more likely you'll be able to use your account to promote your business, your services, and the products you love successfully.

Pro tip: Not all engagement actions are valued equally. 

Likes, comments, saves, and shares are all important, but some are more important than others, at least when it comes to Instagram and Facebook determining whether or not it should serve your client to new/more people.

Measuring social media likes metrics

Likes on social media are the least impactful when measuring quality.

Liking is a trivial process, so the influence it has on the quality of your content is minimal.

Measuring social media comments metrics

Comments take time to create and require users to genuinely think about what they want to say in response to your post.

So, if someone is willing to take the time to comment, your post must be worth more than just a like! That's why comments are more valuable than likes.

Measuring social media post saves metrics

The post saves metric has a higher value because it's one of the few ways to measure user engagement that doesn't require a reaction such as a like or a comment.

It can be helpful to know which posts are being saved by users because it means that they're interested in the content and might want to revisit it later.

Additionally, saves can be a good indicator of how successful your content is at sparking interest from users. The more saves a post has means the value you provide in that post is worth holding onto.

Measuring social media post sharing metrics

The most valuable of the engagement numbers is the shared metric because it helps determine how successful your content is at sparking social media virality.

The more shares your post receives, the more likely it is to be seen by more people, and the greater potential there is for it to generate even more shares.

`This makes the shares metric an important indicator of a post's potential for long-term success and thus is much more valuable to your brand.

Measuring social media engagement rate metrics

This is calculated by dividing engagements by reach and can be helpful in measuring how successful your content is at sparking interaction from users.

Engagement rates answer the question, "How many people who saw my content liked it enough to take action?”

Measuring your social media follower growth

These metrics can be used as general indicators of overall account quality, which is why people use it to determine account credibility in short order.

Measuring your social media followers

This metric is the one people tend to focus on the most, and while it is important, it is in essence the end result of the other metrics we've discussed thus far.

In order to grow your follower count, you have to create good content. In order to determine what your audience deems as "good" you have to look at your reach, impression, and engagement numbers for your posts.

The higher they are, the higher the perceived value (or quality), the higher the value, the more likely someone is to want more of it - so they follow you.

In short, focus on growing the metrics above and this number will follow.

Measuring social media profile views

One of the most important - but often overlooked - social media metrics is the number of profile visits. This metric measures how many times someone has viewed your profile page.

Why is this metric so important? Because it tells you how interested people are in learning more about you and your brand!

If you have a high number of profile visits, it means you're doing something right - you're capturing people's attention and sparking their curiosity enough that they want to learn more.

This is typically the middle step between someone seeing your content and following you.

So if your profile visits are low, it means you need to work on creating more engaging and valuable content to get them to your profile.

Measuring visit to follow rate

You can calculate this metric by dividing your profile visit number, by your new follower count.

This is useful because it can help determine the quality of your profile. For instance, when you see your profile visits metric growing but your follower count is not, it can be an indication that you need to take action on your bio, profile link, or theme of your account.

Measuring Call To Action (CTA) Metrics

While these metrics rarely get talked about, they are by far the most valuable of the lot.

These metrics are the key to determining how much value YOU are getting from your social media presence.

The goal for a business on social media is to drive an action that makes them money. What is that action?

For salon owners, this could mean a client or customer booking an appointment or purchasing a product by going to your website or clicking a button that gets them in touch with you.

These metrics are where the money is!

Measuring website taps

You only have one link on your account page, so make it count!

This website taps metric is critical in determining if your social media account is providing value back to you. The more people click on your website to take an action like buying or booking, the more value your social media account has.

Higher website taps typically equal higher revenue. 

And if, for some reason, you are seeing high website taps numbers and low conversions on your website, then you can reasonably rule out your social media game as being the cause of your issues.

Measuring “book now” button taps

When you have a business account you can add a button to your profile to get people to take a specific action more quickly.

Typically as a salon suite pro, you'll have a "Book Now" or "Reserve" button that allows people to book a consultation without having to leave Instagram.

This metric is also a great indication of revenue because the more button clicks you have, the more consultations you book, and the more consultations you book... we'll let you do the math!

Measuring email/call button taps

These, like the last two, can be great indicators of performance, but many single-owner salon pros tend to not use these due to spam concerns.

If you do use them, it's important to track how many of the emails or calls you received were quality leads for your business.

Using social media tools & metrics to track your success

Tracking and measuring your social media performance metrics can help you understand how well your content is doing, where to adjust, and where to focus more effort.

A clear understanding of the success or failure of each post can help you determine what works best for your business in terms of creating content that drives engagement and revenue.

Armed with this knowledge, you'll be able to create even more successful content and strategies for social media success.

There are other metrics you will find in the Instagram insights tab, and we will go over them in future articles, but for now, these are the ones we suggest you start with as you continue to grow your account!