Everything you Need To Know About KPIs

B2B, B2C, FB, IG, RT, PM, DM, SMM, ROI, ISO, SMART, CTA, CRM - OMG like we need another acronym in our social media world? Nonetheless, this one is pretty essential! Identifying and measuring your KPIs are such an important part of your content strategy. Without the help of KPIs you might never know that you're hitting your goals, so here's what you need to know about them!

What are KPIs?

KPI's, or Key Performance Indicators are "Social media KPIs are measurable metrics that reflect social media performance and prove social’s ROI for a business," according to HubSpot.

KPIs Vs. Goals

One mix-up that usually comes with the subject is the difference between KPIs and goals. They are different, but related! Your goal is the final outcome, while your KPIs are "key metrics indicating whether your performance is good enough to achieve your goals in the end."

Social Media KPI Examples:

• Reach: views, impressions, mentions, followers

• Engagement: likes, saves, comments, retweets, shares

• Return on Investment (ROI): leads, sales, downloads

• Retention: reviews, recurring customers, brand loyalty.

• Customer-Satisfaction: inquiries, response time, ratings.

Starting On Your KPIs

To start setting your KPIs, it's important to start with your goals. After all, your KPIs should be an accent to your goals. From there, you should be able to get more and more refined until you can have a realistic vision of your KPIs are. When creating your KPIs, you should measure where you are with them to start, clearly define them, and know how you will track them. Wondering what a KPI should look like? They should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-based, or otherwise known as SMART goals.

Revisiting Your KPIs

Since you have a time-base schedule on your KPIs according to the SMART requirements, you'll likely have to track and revisit those KPIs depending on the timeframe.

An important thing to remember is that your KPIs are never set in stone! They can, and should, always be revisited. A great time to revisit your KPIs is during your social media audits to make sure that you're on the right track or even see if they need to be changed or updated. Since your business goals and campaigns will change over time, it's highly likely that your KPIs will too to reflect those new goals.