It’s tempting when you look at your content to just consider what gets the most likes. And if you are getting comments and likes assume that you are also getting new business from that content.
But in my experience with my own marketing it’s not that simple. Often the posts that get the most likes don’t generate the most leads. And in fact it’s other things you should be looking at to see if your marketing is ‘working’.
How To Check What Content Is Generating Leads For Your Pet Business
The first thing you need to consider is the purpose of your social media post.
- Is it to create engagement – so that more of your posts will be seen by people?
- Is it an educational piece of content to show your authority in what you do – something that you want people to read?
- Is it a sales post?
Once you know the purpose of the post it’s easier to check if it was a success.
For example, if you are posting a sales post then you should not be measuring the success of that on the number of likes. Instead look at the number of people that clicked on the link within the post. As those are the people that are looking for more information about what you do.
If you are posting something that you want to generate engagement with then measure the comments and shares. Whilst likes are good – the more people that share the larger the reach will be.
Measuring Your Success on Facebook
There are a lot of stats in Facebook Insights that you can look at. But I would suggest starting with the following:
Most Recent Posts – this is a list of all your posts and shows the stats for each of them. It’s a really quick way to see which of your posts are generating the best results.
Growth of the Page – it is important to continue to grow your audience and engagement posts that people share is a great way to do this.
When Fans are Online – if you know when your followers are online you can make sure you post at the times they are most likely to see your content.
Another way to decide on posting times is to think about your ideal customers daily routine and when they might be on social media. For example, on a morning commute, lunch and during the evening.
I would also recommend looking at individual posts after you have posted them on your page to see how they are doing. By doing this you can stay on top of what is/isn’t working and make changes quicker.
Just click on the stats below the post (marked below in yellow) and it will open up all of the post details to show you the link clicks, likes, shares, reach etc.
Measuring Your Success on Instagram
It can be tempting to focus on post likes on Instagram. After all when you get lots of love on a post it does give you that warm fuzzy feeling!
But, realistically it doesn’t take much effort to like something on Instagram and it really doesn’t signal any intent to purchase anything from you.
Instead I would shift your focus to the following:
- Shares – this is when someone is sharing your content with all of their audience
- Saves – I love it when people save my posts as while they may not need what you have to offer now, by saving it they are signaling that they might in the future
- Profile Visits – someone wants to know more about what you do as they are clicking onto your profile to check you out. This is why a good profile is important!
- Website Clicks – these are people that have clicked on the link in your bio. They really want to know more about what you do or what you have to say.
You can check these stats on an individual post OR on your account insights (both marked in yellow below)
Your main account insights will also show you:
- Accounts reached (including % increase/decrease)
- Accounts engaged (including % increase/decrease)
- Total followers (including % increase/decrease)
- Content you shared for grid posts and stories – you can click into these and see which were most popular by all different types of criteria. For example which generated most website visits.
And so much more. There really is a huge amount of data you can access to see how your content is performing for you.
What To Do With All This Data
You could spend days and days analysing all the data available to you – which I would not recommend!
What I would suggest is that you:
- Pick the metrics that are most important to (based on your business goals) and track those
- Keep it simple so you don’t get overwhelmed – it’s better to track a few things consistently than try to track everything and give up after a week
- Decide what is working for you – do more of that – and ditch/change up the rest!
Got Questions – let me know in the comments below.
