The Social Media Metrics CEOs Can‘t Afford to Ignore in 2023

Social media has become a non-negotiable part of doing business in the modern digital age. As of 2023, over 4.9 billion people worldwide use social media, with the average user spending nearly 2.5 hours per day across an average of 7.7 social platforms (DataReportal, 2023). For brands, this represents an enormous opportunity to reach and engage target audiences.

However, simply having a presence on social media is not enough. To maximize the business value of social, CEOs and marketing leaders must focus on tracking and optimizing the right metrics. While "vanity metrics" like follower counts and likes may look good on paper, they don‘t necessarily translate into meaningful business outcomes.

So which social media metrics truly matter? Let‘s take a deep dive into the numbers every CEO should care about in 2023.

Reach & Impressions

Reach refers to the total number of unique users who see your content, while impressions represent the total number of times your content is displayed. While not the ultimate goal, reach and impressions serve as the top of your social media funnel and are key to expanding brand awareness.

According to Hootsuite‘s 2023 Social Media Trends Report, the median global reach rate across industries is 8.8% on Facebook and 30.3% on Instagram. However, companies in the top 25th percentile achieve much higher reach rates of 19.3% and 42.6% respectively. This demonstrates the difference that a highly effective social strategy can make.

To maximize reach and impressions:

• Post consistently according to platform-specific best practices
• Share highly engaging, valuable content that encourages shares and saves
• Leverage hashtags strategically
• Tag relevant users and partners
• Invest in paid promotion to boost top-performing content and reach new audiences

Engagement Rate

Engagement rate measures the amount of interaction a piece of content receives as a percentage of reach or impressions. Interactions may include reactions, comments, shares, saves, click-throughs, etc.

Engagement rate is a crucial metric as it demonstrates how well your content resonates with audiences. Higher engagement rates signal that your content is hitting the mark and providing value. Most social media algorithms also use engagement rate as a key signal to determine how widely to distribute your content.

According to Rival IQ‘s 2023 Social Media Benchmark Report, median engagement rates range from:

• 0.07% on Facebook
• 0.67% on Instagram
• 0.035% on Twitter
• 0.216% on TikTok

To boost engagement rates, focus on:

• Understanding your audience and the kind of content they find valuable
• Asking questions and using strong calls-to-action
• Riding trending topics and formats
• Sharing authentic, "human" content
• Engaging back with your community by responding to comments and messages

Website Traffic & Conversions

For many brands, one of the top goals of social media marketing is to drive traffic back to a website where visitors can be converted into leads and customers. As such, tracking the amount of referral traffic coming from social media is essential, as is monitoring the actions taken by those visitors.

Use UTM parameters and Google Analytics to track how much traffic social media drives to your site, and which networks and types of content drive the most. Then look at key engagement metrics for the traffic from each network, such as:

• Pages per session
• Average session duration
• Bounce rate
• Goal completion rate

This will give you a sense of the quality of traffic coming from each network and how well your site is set up to capture value from it. For example, while Twitter may drive more traffic than LinkedIn, if the LinkedIn audience is more relevant, stays longer and converts at a higher rate, you may want to prioritize LinkedIn.

Leads & Sales

Ultimately, CEOs want marketing efforts to drive business growth in terms of generating new leads and sales. Therefore, it‘s critical to track how many leads and sales come from social media channels.

The first step is ensuring proper attribution, whether through the use of UTM parameters, unique promo codes or some other method. Then, integrate this data with your CRM and sales platform to determine:

• Total leads generated from social media
• Lead to customer conversion rate
• New sales revenue attributed to social media
• Average order value of social media customers
• Lifetime value of social media customers

By assigning a monetary amount to each conversion, you can then measure the total ROI of your social media efforts against the time and money invested.

Share of Voice

Share of voice (SOV) measures how much of the online conversation around your industry or key topics is about your brand versus your competitors. A high SOV signals strong brand awareness, authority and preference within your market.

To measure SOV, use social listening tools to track mentions of your brand and products against those of top competitors across social and web. Calculate SOV as your mentions divided by total industry mentions. According to Sprout Social, an SOV of around 40% indicates a strong social presence.

Beyond just the number of mentions, also analyze the sentiment around those mentions using sentiment analysis tools to get a sense of how positively your brand is perceived. Sentiment can be an indicator of shifting attitudes and potential issues that need addressing.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness represents how familiar your target audience is with your brand and how positively they perceive it. Increasing brand awareness is one of the top goals of social media marketing as it builds the foundation for acquiring new customers.

To measure brand awareness:

• Track social media impressions over time
• Monitor mentions, shares, links and tags of your brand and products
• Use surveys and social listening to gauge what people are saying about you online
• Measure branded search volume lift resulting from social media campaigns

Building brand awareness requires consistent effort and patience, but it pays off. According to Mention‘s 2023 Instagram Report, 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand they follow on social media.

Customer Satisfaction & Retention

Social media provides an incredible opportunity to engage with customers, provide support, gather feedback and foster loyalty. As such, tracking social media‘s impact on customer experience metrics like satisfaction score, retention rate and lifetime value is crucial.

Some key social customer service metrics to monitor:

• Average response time to social inquiries
• Response rate
• Resolution rate
• Customer satisfaction with social support interactions

Sprout Social‘s 2023 Index shows that customers expect responses to social inquiries within 1 hour, but average response times across industries are 4.7 hours on Facebook and 7.3 hours on Twitter, highlighting big room for improvement.

Also leverage social listening to gauge overall customer sentiment and surface common issues or feedback to inform product and service improvements. Positive interactions on social lead to increased customer retention, loyalty and advocacy.

Tools for Tracking Social Metrics

To efficiently and accurately track these key social media metrics, certain tools are a must. Here are some of the top options:

Tool	Key Features	Starting Price
Hootsuite Analytics	All-in-one social media management and analytics	$49/month
Google Analytics	Website traffic and conversion tracking	Free
Sprout Social	Social media management, analytics and listening	$89/month
Rival IQ	Competitive social media analytics and benchmarking	$199/month
Mention	Social media and web listening and analytics	$29/month
Brandwatch	AI-powered social listening, analytics and market research	$800/month
Buzzsumo	Content research and performance analytics	$79/month

The right tool stack will depend on your team size, budget and specific use cases. Look for tools that integrate with one another to provide a holistic view of performance and make reporting easier.

The Takeaway

In today‘s digital-first world, social media has become a crucial driver of brand awareness, customer engagement, and business growth. As a CEO or marketing leader, it‘s essential to go beyond surface-level metrics and focus on the numbers that represent real business impact.

By tracking metrics like reach, engagement, traffic, leads, sales, SOV, brand awareness and customer satisfaction, you can better prove and improve the ROI of your social media marketing efforts. Use the right tools and reporting to keep a pulse on performance and make data-driven decisions.

Remember that social media success requires ongoing effort, experimentation and optimization. Don‘t be afraid to try new things, but always circle back to the metrics to determine what‘s working. By keeping a laser focus on the right KPIs and taking a consistent, strategic approach, you can harness the full power of social media to drive meaningful business results.