Using social media benchmarks are an important strategy for business owners who wants to check their performances on social media. There are many ways to have a successful business. However, one of the fastest and most influential ways to do it is to have an online presence. And social media is the perfect starting point to achieve exactly that! If you’re new to the process and don’t know where to start, you’re at the right place. From your first step to the review part, you can find a complete guide on social media business here and now.
You may feel a little bit confused at first with so many different platforms and the many parameters within them. However, just like everything else in the business world, you can reach the top. Once you know the ropes. So, keep reading and learn what social media benchmarks actually are ad how you can use them to your benefit.
What is Social Media Benchmarking?
Benchmarking is comparing your business or a part of your business with other competitors. By doing that, you get useful insight on what to correct and where to focus on. It is one of the steps in creating your social media marketing strategy. And a crucial one indeed. Without considering your social media advertising benchmarks, your goals may stay superficial and on paper. To prevent that, the first thing you need to do is to understand social media benchmarking. Because the key to using social media successfully is to learn how it works for different purposes.
At its core, social media benchmarking is studying your social media presence and how well you’re doing on platforms. The comparison includes engagement rates, response time, how many posts you’ve shared so far, and more.
The most useful social media metric is using a tool or tools when necessary to compare your growth, engagement rate, response rate, and time. Moreover, the share of your posts and referrals are good indicators of your social media presence as well. They show that the content you’re sharing is relatable to your audience.
The reactions to your posts are also essential to compare when you’re studying social media metrics. How your target audience responds to your content should show you the way for future projects. That’s why you should keep an eye on competitors’ content and the reaction they get. If they’re getting more positive feedback, you should pay attention to it too.
What do Benchmarks Mean for an Online Business?
In the past, benchmarking was a relatively easier thing to do. You could see how well other stores were doing by observing the customers going into the store! And following their marketing strategies was no big deal as it consisted of discounts and visible ads. Now, on the other hand, business owners should invest time and money to learn how their competitors are doing. Moreover, as a business owner trying to grow online as well, you need to consider trends as well.
So, how important are benchmarks for an online business and do you really need to pay attention to them? The short answer is yes but you should know the ‘’why’’ as well. Checking your social media benchmarks is like rerouting your social media presence to where it should be. They bring out which content suits your brand the best and back it up with numbers. This way, you can even create social media advertising benchmarks that are special to your company. Sandra Busch from Falcon.io states that because social media has now become mainstream, your efforts for it will pay off. She also mentions that all the big companies are taking their social media benchmarks seriously. Because they know that the key to using social media successfully is to check the numbers regularly.
How Often Do You Need to Benchmark?
How often you need to benchmark is a factor that changes from business to business. If you are in a business that focuses on the trends on social media and creates your content mostly on trends, then benchmark often. Working on the social media advertising benchmarks is going to have a positive and strong effect on your business. The reason for that is that you will be able to follow the upcoming trends. And your followers and potential customers are going to click on your account. Because you will have the right content on your accounts at the right time.
Haley Durkee from Dash Hudson points out that there are 5 questions to pay attention to when benchmarking. These questions are finding out:
- who is your target audience
- what are your primary goals when benchmarking
- when do you want to reach these goals
- where can you collect the needed data
- why does the information matter for your online business
After you answer these questions, you can create the timeline you need for your business specifically.
Understanding Social Media Benchmarks to Improve Business
Social media has one key characteristic which is its ability to change in an instant. It becomes both an advantage and a disadvantage depending on your usage. To use it to your benefit and turn it into an advantage, you first need to understand its concept. And of course how it works. The key to using social media successfully is to try again and again until you find the right recipe for your line of business. After that, all your social media strategy is going to start to get visible.
According to Unmetric, social media benchmarks are essential in creating your own content ideas. Many social media platforms now provide valuable analytics about your content and your audience’s reaction to it. However, most of the time they are not enough to maximize your potential on these platforms. To achieve that kind of marketing, you need details both about your social media presence as well as your competitors’.
A Complete Guide for Beginners in Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is full of opportunities to grow your business with a lot of successful examples. And you and your business are never late to join the ever-expanding experience with more people joining in every day. And how to do it? Easy. Follow these steps and start benchmarking already!
Where to start?
When it comes to social media marketing, there is a lot to think about. From your intended audience to the best content ideas, things may seem overwhelming. But, steps are here for a reason. So starting from step 1, follow each step carefully and write down the info according to your brand/company.
Step 1. Goals are great when they are practical
Business owners sometimes tend to miss a couple of steps and want to reach the outcome at once. But, this intention, although necessary in terms of passion, creates the minimum effect in the long term. So instead of looking for short-term gains focus on long-term effects when determining goals.
Social media benchmarks come in here. You can compare your numbers either internally or externally with another company. Then you can identify what you want these numbers to be and solidify your main goals. When you write down each step concerning these goals, you’ll have a clear road map. Remember to start your most urgent and achievable goals. And then move on to the ones that will take longer to get. In time, you’re going to realize that the checks on your to-do list are getting lower.
Step 2. Decide your parameters and don’t waste time
Which numbers do you want to increase? Deciding that is a huge part of a practical social media marketing strategy. The parameters you’ll specify are also a guide for you not to lose focus. You can follow them and reach your goals as soon as possible.
However, this doesn’t necessarily mean sticking to the plan entirely. You and your team can always leave room for small readjustments.
Step 3. Determine what you want from your strategy at first
Getting inspired along the way is an amazing way to come up with original business ideas. But, it’s also a risky route as you may get lost in unrelated projects. When you’re deciding which social media benchmarks you want to work on, you should pay attention to one thing. And that is putting your line of business and the dynamics that work for it together which is essential.
For example, if your brand’s main target audience is made up of young people, research what you lack in that. Or if you’re targeting older generations, you should focus on what they value. This key information will form the foundation of your strategy. And the strategy will bring you to the finish line.
Step 4. Measure KPIs
KPIs or key performance indicators are great helpers to see how well you’re doing online. And which one should you look for? The first ones are clicks, likes, and shares. These are the main number groups that show your daily engagement. Following them are comments, active followers, and the number of mentions. These key performance indicators are here for you to regularly check your presence on social media.
Now, you may have a bunch of different business accounts on many social media platforms. So, should you have the same strategy for every one of them? Of course not. Just like each platform highlighting and providing another feature to connect, you should tailor your accounts accordingly.
Step 5. Turn the benchmarks into an original story
Numbers are influential when you make sense of them. When you turn the 5s and 1s into meaningful sentences, you know you have a real project in your hands. Benchmarking is useful for two reasons; to realize what you need to improve and what you need to highlight.
While you’re working on the parts to correct, you should also highlight where you’ve started. Telling your own story is effective because it helps people connect with your brand. This supports you in growing your brand awareness as well.
How can your social media marketing be more engaging with benchmarks?
Let’s say you have a lot of likes and shares but have few comments on your comment section. This is a clear indication that you need to focus on your content more, and include perhaps questions in your posts. Your social media benchmarking can give you a road map on this. For example, your competitor’s Instagram account may get a lot of comments on each post.
Comparing the numbers you may notice this also helps their engagement rate to increase. In that case, you should pay attention to the way they communicate with their followers. Are they asking questions? Try it yourself. Invite your followers to share their opinions. Strike up conversations including the latest trends. In time, your engagement rate is going to increase and you’ll turn benchmarks into real action.
Social Media Benchmarks: Expectations vs. Reality
When a business owner benchmarks social media accounts, the assumptions may be unfulfilled. But this doesn’t necessarily mean a bad thing. It’s an opportunity to further explore your own products and the ways people can connect to them.
Expectation
1. Focusing on one platform is enough.
Reality
1. Many big corporations invest in more than one social media platform to reach more people. It allows them to grow their target audience demographics and discover new marketplaces.
Expectation
2. Paid ads work out instantly.
Reality
2. To boost your social media presence and get more followers regularly, you need to work in different areas. Before rushing into paid ads (which are totally okay to use), invest more in creating high-quality as well.
How can you develop and execute a social media strategy through benchmarks?
Benchmarking gives your team the necessary information before creating or renewing your social media strategies. Through benchmarks, your brand and company can achieve maximum gain. It achieves this by getting numbers together and helping you decide what’s working and what’s not. After that, you can cross out the content that got the least interaction, likes, or comments. Highlighting the ones that followers loved is the last step.
Types of Social Media Benchmarking
If you’re not sure which benchmarking you should choose, here are three types to give you an idea.
● Product-Focused Benchmarking
In this benchmarking type, you put a certain product of yours under the scope. Then you research how it ranks among similar products in the market. This allows you to be aware of other product marketing strategies at the same time. Moreover, you can get inspired and create new ways to promote the product.
● Process-Focused Benchmarking
Having a successful business is all about little details. The top-tier companies and brands are on top because they pay attention to small things. They don’t miss a beat when it comes to taking action about considering errors. And that’s why they are willing to pay money and put effort because it works!
You may have great engagement on one social media platform while your followers don’t seem to increase on another. There may be several reasons for it. Your social media strategy for that particular platform may be unsuitable or you may create and post on unrelated topics for your target audience. Or the reactions are great but your followers don’t seem to continue to shop from your website. And that’s where process-focused benchmarking comes in. This benchmarking type is used in identifying certain parts of your social media strategies that don’t necessarily give the intended result. It works because it allows your company and team to really focus on an area and determine the error. Now the error may be small however correcting it is going to make big difference to your whole online presence just like a butterfly effect.
● Internal Benchmarking
Sometimes the solution you are looking for can be right under your nose and you can still miss it. To prevent situations like these, internal benchmarking can be applied and help you identify your strongest parts in your business along with the weakest parts and show you ways how to make them all better.
How to Keep Your Social Media Benchmarks in Check Easily? Try Socialays!
Socialays AI-based social media assistant, with its many features, provides you with the perfect online helper. With its AI-driven roots, finding out the latest trends and their intended audience is no more complicated. Set off the road with the motto of ‘’ human accuracy at machine scale’’, Socialays takes its power from correct data. With Socialays, you can know which content is popular without wasting time.
And where the information is coming from? Directly from your followers and potential customers! Available on all the popular platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube, you can use it however you want. React to the comments in real-time and analyze them. Auto control the spam, ad, and all the unwanted comment on your accounts. Moreover, you can reports insights on each platform to maximize the feedback. With Socialays, you can do all this and more.
In Closing
Online business is here to stay. And with each passing day, a new way to better your content comes up. One of the most secure and effective ways of checking your social media presence is benchmarking. With benchmarking, you can see how well you’re doing in the market among your competitors.
With different types of benchmarking, you can also compare a certain product or the brand as a whole. Through social media benchmarks, you can pinpoint the right content ideas. It also allows you to check the progress you’re making. As the key to using social media successfully is to catch up on trends and create original stories with them. And when you benchmark regularly, you get a chance to do it.
