Not every social media post needs to result in a sale. That shouldn't be controversial.

But spend enough time looking at marketing dashboards and you'd be forgiven for thinking the sole purpose of communicating online is to push someone through a funnel until they finally surrender their credit card details.

Reach.
Clicks.
Conversions.
Cost per acquisition.
Return on ad spend.

All perfectly useful measures when that's actually what you're trying to achieve.

But what happens when you're a library?

A charity?

A professional association?

A community organisation?

A public-sector team?

Or even a business where trust has to develop for six months before someone is ready to buy?

Suddenly, measuring social media like an ecommerce store starts to make a lot less sense.

Sometimes the job of social media is simply to make someone know you exist

Imagine a local organisation providing support to parents. Someone sees one of their posts today. They don't click. They don't comment. They don't fill in a form. They certainly don't "convert."

Six months later, their circumstances change. Suddenly they need help. And they remember the organisation whose posts they've regularly seen appearing in their feed.

Was that first post unsuccessful? Of course not. It did exactly what it needed to do.

But good luck finding "became familiar enough with our organisation to remember us during a crisis six months later" in Meta Business Suite.

This is one of the difficulties of measuring communications.

The things that matter aren't always the things that are easiest to count.

How do you measure social media success for a community organisation?

Start with the outcome, not the metric. Before looking at your analytics, ask:

What are we actually trying to make happen?

That answer might be:

• We want people to know this service exists.

• We want our community to understand an issue better.

• We want members to feel connected to the organisation.

• We want potential donors to trust us.

• We want people to attend an event.

• We want our organisation to become a recognised voice on this subject.

• We want customers to think of us when they eventually need what we provide.

• We want people to participate in something happening in their community.

Those are very different objectives.

So why would we measure all of them using the same three numbers?

A useful social media content strategy starts by understanding what your organisation needs social media to achieve. The measures you choose should follow from that.

Are likes and reach just vanity metrics?

There’s been a swing in marketing conversations towards dismissing anything that isn’t a hard conversion as a “vanity metric”.

I think that’s too simplistic.

A like isn't necessarily super meaningful. But it isn't necessarily meaningless either.

If you're running a campaign to help people understand a complicated health issue, for example, I'd probably care about whether people are actually seeing and engaging with your explanations.

If you're sharing an important change to a community service, reach matters.

If you're trying to build an active professional community, comments and conversations matter.

If you're establishing expertise on LinkedIn, I'd want to know whether the right people are reading and responding.

Metrics only become vanity metrics when we're reporting them without understanding what they're supposed to tell us.

What social media metrics should libraries and community organisations track?

Measure signals, not just transactions. For many organisations, I'd think about social media measurement in layers.

Are people seeing us?

Look at reach, impressions, video views and audience growth. If awareness is an important part of your social media strategy, these measures can be useful signals.

Are people paying attention?

Look at watch time, saves, shares, comments, link clicks and the kinds of posts people spend time with. These signals can help you understand whether people are simply scrolling past your content or actually finding it useful or interesting.

Are people doing something?

Depending on your objectives, this might include: registrations, enquiries, downloads, donations, bookings, website actions. These are valuable measures when you’re asking people to take a specific action.

Is anything changing beyond social media?

This is where things become more interesting.

• Are people mentioning your social media when they contact you?

• Are event attendees telling you that's where they heard about it?

• Are staff noticing better-informed enquiries?

• Are stakeholders recognising your organisation's work?

• Are people searching for your organisation by name?

• Are partnership opportunities appearing?

Some of that data is messy. That's okay. Not everything will fit neatly into an analytics report.

Social media rarely deserves all the credit

There's another side to this. Organisations sometimes give social media far too much credit. Someone might:

• See a Facebook post.

• Hear a colleague mention you.

• Google your organisation.

• Read three pages of your website.

• Join your mailing list.

• Open four newsletters.

• See another LinkedIn post.

• Talk to someone at an event.

And then finally make an enquiry.

Which channel gets the credit? Marketing attribution desperately wants there to be a neat answer. Human behaviour rarely cooperates.

That's particularly important for charities, community organisations and businesses with longer decision-making cycles. Social media often contributes to an outcome rather than causing it by itself. That's still valuable.

The question I'd put in every social media report

If I could add one question to more organisations' monthly reporting, it would be:

"What did we learn?"

Not just:

"Reach increased by 14%."

But:

"Our posts featuring staff expertise consistently generated more saves than promotional posts, so next month we're going to test a weekly Q&A series."

Or:

"Event posts received reasonable reach but very few website clicks. Posts that clearly explained who the event was for performed considerably better, so we're changing the campaign messaging."

That's useful reporting.

Analytics should help you make better decisions. Otherwise we're just moving percentages around a spreadsheet.

So, is your social media working?

The answer isn't sitting inside one number. Start with what your organisation needs social media to accomplish. Decide what signals would tell you that's happening. Use platform metrics where they're helpful. Combine them with what you're observing elsewhere.

And accept that some of the most important work your communications does building trust, familiarity, credibility and connection, won't always produce a beautifully trackable conversion. That's not a failure of social media.

Sometimes it's simply a reminder that human beings don't behave like ecommerce funnels.

If you’d like help creating a clearer social media strategy and working out what your organisation should actually be measuring, you can find out more about working with me here.

Frequently Asked Questions:

What is the best way to measure social media success?

Start by defining the outcome you want before choosing your metrics. A useful measure is one that helps you understand whether you’re getting closer to that outcome and informs what you should do next.

Should community organisations track likes and reach?

Yes, when those metrics relate to what you’re trying to achieve. Reach can matter when you need people to know about a service or issue, while comments and shares may be more important when your goal is conversation or community participation.

Can social media be successful without generating enquiries or sales?

Absolutely. Social media may be helping people become familiar with your organisation, building trust, improving understanding or keeping your organisation front of mind until someone needs you.