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Take a closer look at the social media marketing advice out there today. You're quickly going to find one fairly common thread - more. More posts, more content, more promotions, just more.

While many other forms of marketing are well defined, social media marketing is one spot where the advice just isn't as clear. Many experts aren't even sure which social media metrics matter, and how to analyze the ones they have. Some will tell you that followers and likes are all that matter, but the reality is that you can buy followers or likes. It doesn't mean you're actually generating leads that are critical for your company.

So, how do you define it for your company so you can ensure you're not wasting your time and resources? Understanding these metrics will help you create an unbeatable social media analysis that looks at what really matters to your efforts.

Baseline Metrics

You're looking at how many subscribers you have, how many leads you get, and what that looks like in terms of sales. These are fairly bottom line metrics, yet many businesses stop at the click through rates. Don’t! Get your baseline data.

Number of Engaged Comments

Sure, there are some comments that turn out to be spam, but on the whole, comments mean people are engaged with your content and are interested in what you're doing. Getting a like is often less of an indicator because it’s quick and easy - almost mindless - to hit that button. Commenting involves more time and thought.

Bounce Rate

This is the number of people who show up, but bounce off after just seeing a single page. It really means that you're getting people to your site, but then they turn around and leave. It can help you decide which content your social media followers are most interested in and which aspects of your website are not performing optimally. Your goal is to have the lowest possible bounce rate on your pages.

Time

How long are people staying on your site each time they appear? Imagine someone visits your site, spends fifteen seconds looking around and leaves. Now imagine someone visits your site, spends five minutes reading one post, fills out a contact form, then leaves. You have the same bounce rate, but you have someone in your sales funnel with the second scenario. Understand which content is keeping people on your site longest to really look at what is working well.

Unique Visitors and Total Visits

How many people are seeing your material? Of those, how many people are new to your site? A high unique visit rate is helpful, but you want more visits overall, right? Because if you have 100 unique visits every week, but only 100 total visits every week, then a hundred people are showing up, looking around, and deciding they don't want to come back. If you have that same 100 unique visits every week, but you have 500 total visits every week, people are showing up, then coming back again for more. You want new traffic, but the traffic that comes back is just as important.

Organic Shares

Even better than someone clicking that share button is someone mentioning your brand without your help, and you can use tracking tools like Mention to track this and incorporate your findings into your social media analysis. If you're seeing those organic shares, you're seeing true brand awareness, which only means amplification.

That rate can be calculated if you look at a single piece of content, look at the total number of shares, then divide by the number of followers. Multiply it by 100 to get a percentage. See which of those you're truly happy with and which ones could have performed better to get some guidance on what's working well for your brand.

Funnels

You've probably designed a funnel or two for your users, right? You decide which steps they're going to take to make that purchase. Every user isn't the same, though, and they're not all going to follow your funnel in a linear way. Instead, it can be helpful to look at the ones they create for themselves to really measure the power of your content.

When they first follow that shared link, where do they go before they make a final decision? That may help you decide what they're looking for when they land in a given spot and what needs to be better optimized.

Which social media metrics matter depends entirely on your company and your goals, but these will help you get a good start on measuring your ROI and optimizing your social strategies.