There are many different Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that marketers track when evaluating the results of a social selling program. There are a host of KPIs that revolve around users and their performance online. Additionally, looking at performance of posts from the point of view of the content subject and type that is being shared is equally important.  In this article, we’ll explore the different types of KPIs, their significance, and which ones to track to gain the meaningful insights you want to understand pertaining to your social selling results.

Types of KPIs

Social selling KPIs fall into many categories: engagement, reach, conversion, and customer service. Several different metrics in each category often work together to help show to what extent your social selling efforts are paying off. Let’s have a closer look.

Engagement KPIs

Engagement KPIs are the ones that everyone is most familiar with. They include the most common metrics in content performance, such as likes, comments, and shares. They also include saves, a lesser-utilized post feature that allows users to add a post to their virtual gallery, indicating to others that your post is valuable enough to be saved for later.

There are also mentions, or “tagging,” in which other users can be directly notified of your post/comment. You can track mentions through notifications you receive when a post includes a tag mentioning you. The more people mention you, the more engagement it will generate, making the author’s audience aware of you and your page in that post.

Surprisingly, direct messages (DMs) are a crucial metric for engagement, even though they might initially seem more suited for customer service. DMs indicate someone is deeply connected to your content and motivated enough to reach out directly. Whether these messages are questions about your posts, inquiries about your products, or simply friendly conversations, they all demonstrate a high level of engagement with your profile.

Reach KPIs

Reach KPIs measure how far your content travels and how extensive your social selling network is. One of the simplest Reach KPIs is your follower count. Another is impressions, which is how many times your post appeared in someone’s feed or timeline. That doesn’t mean that each and every person viewed it, but rather that the post is guaranteed to show up in that many other people’s feed. But that is only the beginning. Beyond the network size and the impressions granted by LinkedIn you can find even more Reach if you know where to look.

For example, say you created a post that mentioned another person or organization, and they shared that post on their profile. Your post’s reach would now be your following and the following of whoever shared it—effectively doubling the Reach. In fact, the following of every share on your post can contribute toward your impressions, increasing the number of places it can be seen on various feeds.

Conversion KPIs

Conversion KPIs deal with the amount of traffic that moves from your social media profile to another destination you want, whether a website or an external article. These are important because they allow you to see to what extent your social selling efforts lead to actual business results. 

The number of people who complete a call-to-action (CTA) on your post divided by how many people view your post is called a conversion rate. The number of people that interact with your call to action, whether they complete it or not, is called your click-through rate.

If your CTA is to watch a video, another KPI you should record is your video completion rate. Those who watch your video entirely are more in tune with the message or product you’re trying to sell and could be prospective clients. In addition, if more of your audience is watching your entire video, it indicates that your content resonates well with your audience.

Customer service KPIs

Customer service KPIs are based on what people have experienced with your brand. One of these metrics is a customer satisfaction score, based on how happy a client is after interacting with your customer service team. Unlike other metrics taken from info on specific posts or your profile, this variable can only be gained from surveys after customer service interactions.

Net promoter score (NPS) and Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) are two other critical customer service KPIs in social selling. The NPS is a measure of brand loyalty and is also taken from surveys, especially if a question states, “How likely are you to recommend us to a friend?” Conversely, CLV is the total revenue or profit generated from a customer over their entire relationship with your business. This metric helps understand the long-term value of customers acquired through social selling, as it shows how much you’ll need to invest in a single client acquisition.

Which ones are the most important?

The tricky thing about KPIs is that they’re all equally important when taken at face value. The decision on which ones are more important comes from the goals of your social selling strategy and where you are in your journey.

When first starting out, Engagement and Reach KPIs may be more important than the others. These metrics focus more on content performance, which is an important insight when figuring out if you need to change your content composition and strategy. They also paint an accurate picture of what your audience needs or is interested in, making it easier to plan specific social media campaigns based on those needs and interests.

Conversion KPIs and customer service KPIs will be more significant to social sellers and marketers who have mature social selling programs. After figuring out how your content should look and what it will do, you need to determine if your messaging is working and if people are satisfied with your services. Most conversion and customer service feedback comes after someone purchases your product, so if you calculate these KPIs too early, your results may be skewed.

One final thought here for anyone wondering what comes next. The surveys that you conduct to gather customer service KPIs can be turned into content. By doing this, you create a virtuous circle between content created, new business generated and customer service measurement. Answers generated in online forums about your product also can be shared as content, along with client testimonials, and case studies.

The essentials

Social selling KPIs are spread out to encompass every part of a potential client’s buyer’s journey. Using your KPI measurements, you can figure out precisely what is working and what is not, making them a reliable insight when altering your content strategy or beginning a new campaign. While some KPIs may take importance over others while in different stages of social selling, all KPIs help paint a picture of your overall performance on social media and how it translates into your actual business practices.

Photos by Nick Hillier, Mick Haupt, Susan Holt Simpson, and Alejandro Garay on Unsplash