How to Define & Measure Social Media KPIs Part V

How-to-Define-Measure-Social-Media-KPIs-–-Part-5

Prologue

Having omnipresence in an era of multi-channel marketing is essential for marketers to target the right set of audiences with the right pieces of information to streamline the sales’ conversion cycles. When it comes to social media marketing, marketers need to define social media KPIs to quantify their marketing endeavors. How to define social media KPIs is a question on the mind of every marketer today. Before articulating a social media KPI spreadsheet the marketers need to competitively & otherwise benchmark the market to figure out what’s trending & what’s not. Discovering metrics that help the marketers in competitively benchmarking their competitors as well as in taking steps towards their business objectives, leads to the foundation of what we call the Social Media KPIs (or the Social Media Key Performance Indicators). Social Media KPIs are worth measuring as representing them in the form of visually appealing dashboards helps organizations in figuring out the loopholes in their social media marketing strategies & in competitively benchmarking them for optimization as well. Establishing the right social media KPIs isn’t an overnight task & takes some split-testing & the amalgamation of the data-driven insights before the marketers can evaluate their social media channels & can aptly set up their social media goals. The importance of quantifying the social media KPIs was quoted by Pearl Zhu, CIO Master, in the Unleash the Digital Potential of It, as follows:
“Selecting the right measure and measuring things right are both art and science. And KPIs influence management behavior as well as business culture.”
In the previous sections of the blog, we have unraveled how brands can define, measure & optimize their social media KPIs for channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & LinkedIn. In the current section, let’s delve into how brands can strategize, define & optimize their social media KPIs for YouTube. The Important Social Media KPIs for YouTube A YouTube KPI can be described as an evaluative measurement tool to qualitatively & quantitatively gauge & track the effectiveness of video content on YouTube channels of the brands. Videos are an impactful way of advertising. 87% of the marketers use videos as a marketing tool (Source: Wzyowl, 2019) & 85% of all internet users in the United States watch online video content (Source: Statista, 2018). YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine & is only behind Google (Source: Search Engine Journal) & 68% of YouTube users watched a video to help them make a purchase decision. Thus, YouTube is an excellent platform to reap the benefits of video-based content. The following social media KPIs for YouTube can be deployed by marketers to optimize their social media marketing endeavors: 1). Total Time invested in Watching Videos: Tracking the total time invested in watching videos is one of the most important social media KPIs. The average time invested watching a video reflects whether or not the video content is engaging enough for the audiences on YouTube. Aligning the average watch time per video with that of the competitors or with industry-specific benchmarks can give insights about improving the content in the video, to best suit the interests of the buyer persona & to drive conversions on the website. 2) Total Number of Views on A Video: Along with the average watch time per video, tracking the total number of views on individual videos can help understand which types of videos are doing best for the marketers. Hence, the total number of views on a video is amongst the important Social Media KPIs. Also, the number of views on the videos is directly co-related with the engagement of the prospects. 3) Audience Retention Analysis of Video: A detailed audience retention analysis of the videos can help the marketers deduce which type of content plays a crucial role in captivating the interests of the users. If the video isn’t interesting enough, the prospects might pre-maturely terminate the view or might watch the video at an accelerated pace. So, tracking audience retention as a Social Media KPI is important, as it helps the marketers create more engaging videos. 4) Engagement on Videos: Engagement analysis is just as important for YouTube marketing as any other social media marketing platforms. The total number of likes, comments, shares & dislikes helps the marketers decide what type of reaction their video-based content is evoking in the prospective buyers. While likes, comments & shares are positive social media KPIs, the dislike is a unique engagement metric exclusive to YouTube. If the number of dislikes on a specific video is far higher in number than the total number of likes, it surely means that the marketers need to review their content strategy as their content is somehow not appealing to a large proportion of audiences. The content type needs to be adjusted to the interests & research methodologies of the buyer persona. 5) The Number of Subscribers: The increase or decrease in the total number of subscriptions on the YouTube channel of a brand is one of the best social media KPIs to signify the relevance of their video content. As per the upsurge or deterioration in the number of subscribers, over a while, the marketers can decide about tailoring their content to best suit the needs of the potential buyers. 6) The Number of Daily Active Users: These metrics help to track the most trustworthy fans who visit the channel every day. Tracking the average number of views on the website & the number of daily active users as the social media KPIs, helps marketers to understand how their channel is perceived daily. 7) Traffic Source: The traffic on the YouTube channel of a brand can come from many sources including YouTube Search, YouTube Suggested Video, YouTube Channel Pages & YouTube Browse Features, and Direct Channels & External Sources. Quantifying analysis of channels leading to traffic as social media KPIs can help the marketers deduce the specific traffic sources the channel has acquired over time. Segmenting views from diverse channels also give insights into the quality of engagement on the videos. In general, YouTube searches have a higher click-through rate (CTR) than the home source (from Browse features), because the search viewers have a greater intent to watch. Marketers need to track the traffic sources of their YouTube channels. An increase in the number of traffic sources implies that the channel is expanding & improving its reach to potential buyers which is a good sign for the brand managers. YouTube KPIs are also classified based on the three stages of a typical buying cycle namely awareness, consideration & action.
  • Awareness KPIs:
The social media KPIs at the awareness stage include the following:
  1. Views
  2. Ad recall upsurge (the increase in the number of users who remember the brands’ after watching it)
  3. Awareness upsurge (the increase in the cognitive ability of users to remember the brands after watching a video about it)
  4. Impressions &
  5. Total number of unique users
  • Consideration KPIs:
Tracking consideration KPIs is important to delve into the deeper levels of user engagement. The Social Media KPIs at this stage of engagement include the following:
  1. Total Watch Time
  2. Brand Interest lift
  3. Consideration lift
  4. Favorability lift &
  5. View-through rate
  • Action KPIs:
These social media KPIs are aligned with users’ interest areas, heading to conversions or other things that immediately drive conversions. KPIs at this stage include the following:
  1. Clicks
  2. Conversions &
  3. Purchase Intent upsurge (Increase in the intention of the prospects to make a purchase)
Measuring the efforts of leveraging a YouTube video channel for brand awareness & equity development is the need of the hour. Analytical tools such as Google Analytics, YouTube Analytics & Brand Lift can help the marketers measure the successes of their YouTube promotional contents across the different stages of buyers’ cycle.

Wrapping It Up

A YouTube KPI is used to evaluate video content performance on social media channels. Defining the social media KPIs for YouTube & preparing a social media KPI report template for the same, are tactics based on defining & establishing highly successful social media video strategies. At the end of the day, social media KPIs are all about separating what you need from innumerable data-driven metrics. We, at Valasys Media, employ lead generation, account-based marketing, lead nurturing, event promotion services, list building services & content syndication services to help our clients with their core bottom-line endeavors such as optimization of their sales revenues. Our services are articulated towards helping our clients achieve their core bottom-line objectives such as optimized sales revenue, improved users’ experiences & better returns on their marketing investments (ROMI). For architecting perennially healthy sales pipeline or for any other help with the B2B marketing, get in touch with our team of experts.

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