How are metrics used?

Measuring campaign success

Lisa Salem: When we use data to measure the success of a campaign, we use things called key
performance indicators. There are usually ways of figuring out whether you've met your objectives. If
you are wanting increased brand awareness, you might be measuring things like likes or followers of
your page or views of your content. And each of those things might be a target that you set to reach,
a key performance indicator. And by the end of the campaign, or as the campaign goes along, you
monitor how those things are doing and measure whether you've achieved those targets or not.

Danielle Haynes: I determine success on a social media campaign by referring back to the overall
goal of the campaign in the first place, and this should connect to your overall business strategy. So if
your strategy is to have more product sales or more sign ups, then those are going to be the
indicators for success for you.

If your strategy is to get brand awareness and get word of mouth out there, then your success is
going to be either more shares and more engagement on social media posts, or it may be more site
visits to your website.

Social media metrics may not be enough and may not tell you everything you need to know about
your product or your business. Maybe scroll through the comments and look at your inbox to see
what customers are directly saying to you about your product and about your business. This can help
you make changes if necessary.

When things don’t go to plan

Lisa: If certain things aren't going as planned in the middle of a campaign, don't panic. You can
always tweak things as you go along. Investigate the problem, look through the comments that you've
received so far, look at your analytics, and then just pivot as you go. And if you really are at a loss,

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you can always ask. You can actually ask your audience. You don't have to be direct about it most of
the time. You need to get creative about how you do it. But your post can be market research.

Danielle: If in the middle of a campaign things aren't going exactly the way you'd hoped, stop and
review your content. Could you change the imagery? Could you change the wording to perhaps make
it more engaging for your audience?

Look at your comments. Are there any questions about your product that you hadn't anticipated. If so,
answer those in a helpful manner and review your content so you're addressing it before the
concerns arise.

What data analysis can do?

Lisa: I was working on a music documentary that followed the live performance career of a band, and
I noticed that the content we were sharing was really impacting the overall attention that our page
got. We were sharing content that on the face of it looked quite similar, but some of it bombed and
some of it was doing amazingly.

And so because of that, I had to really dig down and figure out what was the difference between
those two types of content and share less of the bad stuff and more of the good stuff. And actually,
overall we realised that sharing less content made our whole page do better, which was a big
surprise for us. So I discovered that our community wanted less content, not more. And that we
wouldn't have known that had I not dug down into the data.

Danielle: There may be some things that can tell you a little bit more than just data when deciding
what to do in a campaign. Before your campaign starts, you'll want to use the data that you learned
from your last campaign and any activities you've been doing since then to inform what you're going
to be doing in your next one.

But you'll also want to use your hunch and your own intuition to decide as well. Are there any things
that are trending in the industry right now or any particular topics that you think are really going to
resonate with your audience? Use that to inform some of the content that you're going to make.

After your campaign is finished, data is also going to be really important and may matter actually
more at this stage. Here is where you learn from the campaign, learn about what worked and what
didn't, and this is the information that's going to inform your next campaign in the future.

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Top Tips for using metrics
Lisa: My top tips for metrics with a social media campaign are, firstly, do not get overwhelmed. You
do not need to over measure. If you're a small operation, just measure a few things. Measure even
only one thing. But just stay on top of it. Measure it month to month or however long your campaign
is, so that if you need to tweak as you go, you can. And always look out for risks and opportunities. If
things are not working so well, you'll want to tweak. And you may even want to lay off of that thing.
And if something's working better than you expected, it's a sign that you probably need to do more of
it.

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