Statistics, Forecasting, and Social Media

Welcome to The Social Lab! This blog will help you navigate your personal social media and investigate marketing trends and examples of great social media work. Do you have something we should talk about? Make sure to send us an email.

Analytics is on the rise when it comes to social media. Companies everywhere are asking why the number of followers their business has means anything regarding true KPIs such as leads, sales, and subscriptions. So, how can you ensure your clients understand the importance of social media? Furthermore, how can you ensure your brand succeeds and creates the revenue, brand awareness, and thought leadership you desire? 

Since social media analytics can get confusing, it's essential to understand the definition of the different KPIs. For example, link clicks are self-explanatory, but the difference between reach and impressions could be more transparent. Reach is the number of individuals that received a post. On the other hand, impressions are the number of times a post is displayed. Impressions will always be higher because it isn't the number of individuals but the number of times it was displayed. We all know from experience that you will often see a post multiple times, not just once. There are many other KPIs that you will run into, so we recommend heading over here to study what all of them mean. 

To truly understand all of the metrics we have access to on all the different social media platforms, we turned to statistical theories. Using Google Sheets, we created multiple tabs with all the metrics we can find from each platform. 

The image above is for Facebook and represents the end of the Google Sheet. The teal and beige highlighted cells represent "weights." The beige differs from the teal because it means Facebook Ads rather than organic. Weighting is a beautiful way to create an overall grade while also considering that some metrics are more important than others. When you were in high school or college, homework was not as impactful as final exams; our stats represent the same philosophy. Let's say you are tracking 50 different metric categories on Facebook. You can then weigh each of them based on importance and have them equal 100. Link clicks are more important than likes, so you can have it weigh more. After completing this, you can create a grade or an Index Score. How do you make this number? 

=SUMPRODUCT(D10:Y10,Z10:AU10)/SUM(Z10:AU10)

To consider multiple arrays, you must compare the original metrics with the weights assigned; then, you can generate an appropriate grade. It's essential to remember that the Index Score is an arbitrary number that is great for comparing within your business or different platforms. Still, it's hard to compare with competitors simply because you need their metrics. Of course, the Index Score is just a number, so how can we analyze it further to determine whether or not it's good? Like any statistics, it's essential to have many numbers to assess significance. We took the average of all of the Index Scores over time and then determined whether or not that particular month was better or worse than the average.

=(MINUS(AV8,AW8)/AW8)*100

If you know the percentage increase or decrease, you were 15% better than the average. You could even give yourself an A, B, C, D, or F. 

This may seem incredibly confusing and not worth your time, but remember that how you represent your work to your clients will significantly impact retention. If you can impress people with your ability to show the importance of social media, then they are more likely to keep you on board. 

What other exciting things can you do with social media metrics? Besides creating an overall grade, you can also compare two different variables by creating a Pearson Study. Let's say you want to determine whether or not there was a significant correlation between the number of posts and Index Score. The number of posts you make determines the success of your overall grade. You can also use linear regressions and forecasting. How many followers will you have at year's end? Create a linear regression model with all of your stats, and see where it ends up at the end of the year.

Many of these concepts may be difficult for individuals without a background in mathematics, so if you would like assistance with any social media statistics...send us an email or comment below. How do you report on your brand or the social media for your clients? Let us know so we can all learn how to report better and improve as social media gurus.