Learn What Truly Drives Strong Engagement on Social MediaSMU SMC

Likes Have Become a Thing of the Past: How to Measure True Digital Engagement

Today, social media is filled with advertisers and brands promoting their content. Each platform has its own way of pushing out a message, photo or video to its target audience. This makes it easier for brands to reach a specific demographic, hoping to earn high engagement on social media from their followers.

As more and more content is generated for social platforms, companies are eager to hear their impact. Measuring a brand’s social footprint has become one of the more challenging sides of using media. While it is easy to look at numbers, sometimes, these can mean nothing. For example, if a post is liked by half of their follower base, one might view that as a success. On the other hand, it may have received little to no shares, retweets or comments making the social engagement figure very low.

Likes Are Numbers; Engagement Drives Outcomes

Simply relaying the number of likes or favorites a post receives, does not cut it anymore. Companies are starting to depend on the metrics that actually drive major outcomes. After all, 60 percent of social media practitioners say that measuring their efforts is still a top-three challenge for their campaign. With this in mind, why even bother determining the small impact generated from a “like.”

The areas that truly create the most engagement are shares and website traffic. Whenever a brand can further expand their audience through shares, the return on investment is easier to measure. Thanks to trackable links, companies can also tell which adds and posts directed a consumer back to their product or site. Rather than gaining likes, companies are beginning to focus on content that redirects the consumer back to their homepage.

Do not get me wrong; impressions are important, but digital reach and engagement are what bring in a profit to most brands. Content that drives these results can be hard to create, but with the right visuals and messaging, brands will see their audience engagement increase.