A video that racks up 500 views is exciting, until you realize no one clicked through to your website, commented, or shared. It’s tempting to treat vanity metrics as proof of success, especially when they look impressive in a report, but you can’t measure social media success without looking at the data for the full funnel. If you’re relying on surface-level data like likes and views alone, you’re only seeing part of the story.
To understand whether your campaign is working, you need to dig deeper. Are you reaching enough people? Sparking engagement? Driving traffic, sign-ups, or support? Whether you’re rallying for support and donations, attracting new applicants, or looking for buy-in from the leadership team, you need metrics that connect your efforts to real outcomes.
In this blog, we’ll break down the common key metrics, when they most matter, and how to use this data to create more content that drives results.
What Each Metric Tells You
Sprout Social’s 2025 Index highlights five top priorities for marketing teams: overall engagement, audience growth, social interactions, web visitors, and share of voice. But tracking your metrics is only half of the equation. You need to understand how each one contributes to your goals and how to use that insight to refine your strategy.
| Metric | What It Measures | When It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Reach* | Unique people who saw your post | Brand awareness, audience growth |
| Impressions* | Total views (including repeats by the same person) | Frequency, visibility |
| Engagement | Likes, comments, shares, saves, clicks | Audience interest, content relevance |
| Click-throughs | How many people clicked on a link | Website visits |
| Engagement Rate** | % of people who interacted out of those who saw it. | Content quality, relevance |
*You post a video on Instagram. It gets 1,000 unique viewers, and half of them watch it again. That means your reach is 1,000 (because that’s how many individual accounts saw it), but your impressions are 1,500 (since it was viewed a total of 1,500 times, including repeats).
**ERR Formula Total engagements ÷ reach (or followers) × 100.
Engagement Looks Different in Every Platform
On average, engagement rates look like this:
(Keep in mind that these are very basic benchmarks, the engagement you can realistically expect on your content may be radically different depending on your industry, the size of your audience and boosting budget, and many other factors.) Each platform has its own engagement ecosystem, and understanding these differences helps you create smarter content and interpret results more accurately. What drives success on TikTok won’t necessarily work on LinkedIn, so you need platform-specific strategies. Here’s a quick guide to what engagement means on each major platform:
- Key Metrics for Engagement: Reactions, comments, shares
- Watch out for: Passive scrolling can inflate reach and impressions
- Tip: CTR is your best indicator for traffic and action
- Key Metrics for Engagement: Likes, comments, shares, saves (saves are next-level engagement)
- Watch out for: Reels have different metrics (watch time matters)
- Tip: Use videos or trending audio to boost reach, and don’t forget Stories as part of your marketing strategy.
- Key Metrics for Engagement: Reactions, comments, reposts, clicks
- Watch out for: Quality over quantity. A single thoughtful comment can be worth more than 100 likes
- Tip: Early engagements like comments and shares are heavily weighted in the algorithm towards pushing a post up on more followers’ feeds.
- Key Metrics for Engagement: Likes, comments, shares, rewatches
- Watch out for: Prioritize watch time over reach, and tracking click-throughs can be challenging unless you’re using paid ads or bio links
- Tip: Viral content can inflate numbers without driving action
- Key Metrics for Engagement: Reposts, replies, likes, mentions
- Watch out for: Stay in the loop. Timely content performs best for engagement.
- Tip: Visuals and hashtags boost visibility
Match Your Metrics to What You’re Trying to Do
The key to meaningful measurement is connecting every metric to a specific business outcome. If you can’t draw a line from your social media numbers to real results, you’re just collecting data for the sake of it.
| Your Goal | Key Metrics to Watch |
|---|---|
| Build awareness | Focus on reach, impressions, and follower growth. |
| Drive engagement | Watch your engagement rate, comments, shares, and saves. |
| Boost donations/signups | Boost donations/signups Link clicks, conversions, landing page performance |
| Promote events | Shares and comments (especially people tagging friends) plus clicks to your RSVP page |
| Recruit or hire | Clicks to job posts and comments from potential candidates |
Building Benchmarks That Drive Improvement
Industry benchmarks can be helpful as a starting point, but your most valuable benchmark is your past performance.
Ask yourself these questions about each post:
Did this post hit the goal? If you created it to drive website traffic, did people click? If you wanted to spark discussion, are people commenting? If you hoped to build awareness, did your reach expand to new audiences?
Did it create meaningful interaction? Five shares and two inquiries from industry professionals might be worth more than 100 likes from random accounts. Quality engagement from your target audience beats a high quantity of engagement from everyone else.
Did people take action beyond the platform? This is the big one. Social media is rarely the end goal. It’s usually a means to get people to do something else: visit your website, sign up for your newsletter, attend your event, buy your product. Track those outcomes and not just the social metrics.
Are you improving over time? Your engagement rate this month should be compared to your engagement rate last month, not to some industry average. Consistent improvement is worth more than hitting arbitrary benchmarks.
Creating Your Smart Measurement System
To build meaningful benchmarks, start to:
- Track weekly or monthly performance by platform
- Use tools like Google Analytics, HubSpot, or Agorapulse to spot trends over time.
- Identify top-performing posts based on engagement rate and click-throughs
- Categorize your content (events, storytelling, educational, user-generated) to see which ones resonate best with your audience. Fun fact: according to HubSpot, funny content was the #1 type driving ROI for brands in 2024
- Conduct a social media audit to assess performance, identify strengths and gaps, and uncover growth opportunities
Let Your Metrics Tell the Right Story
Big numbers can look impressive, but if they aren’t aligned with your goals, they don’t always mean progress. Great marketing tells a clear story, and so should your data. Know what you’re trying to accomplish, measure accordingly, and focus on getting better rather than being perfect.
Your social media metrics should work like a map and compass. They show where you’ve been, where you are, and how to navigate toward where you want to be.
When in doubt, ask yourself: Did this post move someone to do something meaningful? That’s what matters most.
Not sure if your content is reaching the right audience or driving the right results? Let’s take a look at your goals, review your current metrics, and build a smarter strategy!