Metrics that Matter - Going Beyond Followers & Likes

Have you heard the term “Vanity Metrics” on social media?

It suggests that likes, comments and follower counts don’t actually equate to tangible results. And sometimes that’s true.

But to me - impressions, engagements, comments, and reshares/retweets aren’t vanity metrics at all.

Call me an optimist, but I like to think of each little metric as a “vote” that whatever I shared is resonating.

But here’s the catch: not every vote has equal value.

Counting all votes equally keeps many creators aiming for the wrong prize: Always looking for the most engagement instead of the right engagement.

The right engagement leads to meaningful results in your sales funnel. Let’s take a look at some:

• Top of funnel metrics: Likes, comments, shares, followers.
• Middle of funnel metrics: Visits to your website, newsletter signups, # of pages viewed, duration of time spent on your website, etc.
• Bottom of funnel metrics: Purchases, subscriptions, revenue, etc.

All these metrics matter. But the average creator never stops focusing on the top of their funnel.

And in order to build a real business, you have to move people from the top of your funnel down to the bottom.

Let’s look at two pieces of my content for an example.

Here are two back-to-back days where my posts performed similarly, by engagement standards.

But the follower counts and revenue results tell a different story.

Post #1: November 20th, 2022

- Impressions: 119,492

- Engagements: 2,362

- Comments: 304

- New followers: 714

- Revenue: $3,111

- Followers per impression: .006

- Revenue per impression: $0.026

Post #2: November 21st, 2022

- Impressions: 104,447

- Engagements: 1,035

- Comments: 388

- New followers: 326

- Revenue: $8,089

- Followers per impression: .003

- Revenue per impression: $0.078

My November 20th post generated 2x the number of new followers per impression than the post on November 21st.

Why?

Because that was my intention. Image posts with no CTA (call-to-action) generate a ton of buzz but keep people on the LinkedIn platform. The result is that people are most likely to read, comment, and click the follow button.

My November 21st post generated 3x the dollars per impression compared to the other post.

Why?

Because I sacrificed top-of-funnel (engagement and followers) for revenue.

I took my readers away from LinkedIn and brought them to my website, by using a link in my post.

Now usually when I use a link in a post, my impressions suffer by about 50%. Woof.

That’s because LinkedIn doesn’t like content creators to take users off their platform.

So how did I get around that obstacle?

I closed out my post with a simple call-to-conversation:

”What's your best online networking tip for landing great connections? Drop 'em below and let's swap tips.”

Starting a conversation helps my posts perform well because comments boost impressions.

So my goal was to generate comments in order to offset the lower reach I expected from having a link in my post.

With this simple strategy, I was able to generate lots of impressions AND bring people to my website to shop around. The trade-off was that I didn’t increase my follower count as much as I normally would.

Instead, I was rewarded with new customers.

Here are a few content types you can use at each stage of your customer journey:

- More top-of-funnel: Single Tweets, Non-CTA Threads, Non-CTA LinkedIn posts, Carousels, Image posts, engaging on large creator content, etc.

- More middle-of-funnel: Threads with newsletter CTAs, LinkedIn posts with newsletter CTAs, Teasing out guides, ebooks, breakdowns, etc. with posts to collect emails, free guides on your website, free email courses, and lead magnets.

- More bottom-of-funnel: Email marketing, CTAs in your newsletter, CTAs in your guides, ebooks, breakdowns, etc.

I hope my LinkedIn examples and the suggestions above show you the power of different types of content, CTAs, and strategies you can use on any social media platform.

If you like strategies like this, join 17,000+ students and 30+ LinkedIn Top Voices in my top-rated course, The LinkedIn Operating System: Grow & Monetize LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is one of the best places to build a business in 2024, so come join us.

That’s all for today.

See you next week.