Social media benchmarking puts context around your efficiency metrics. It is essential for 2 primary factors:
- Determines whether efficiency is increasing or reducing in time
- Enables actionable insights for what to do next
Without carrying out social networks benchmarking you have no other way to assess success on social networks or perhaps comprehend what represents “good” or “bad” efficiency.
There are 2 methods to benchmark your social networks marketing:
- Historical benchmarking versus yourself in time, i.e.: month on month, week on week
- Competitor benchmarking versus a group of rivals that you figure out
Most stakeholders and customers do not have a trusted structure for how to examine social networks marketing (i.e.: what is the return on their financial investment?). Measuring interactions and development is great however without benchmarking, you’re determining in a silo and not able to inform a meaningful story of efficiency in time.
In addition to this, social networks benchmarking enhances the general service case for social networks marketing and might even assist you alter understandings in your company. Perhaps social is seen internally as a cost however in time you can alter that understanding so that social is seen rather as a financial investment that yields a concrete return.
Finally, social networks benchmarking supplies essential rival intelligence and assists you comprehend what type of content operate in your specific niche or market. This isn’t about merely copying strategies that work for rivals however more about comprehending how audiences respond to various material, various media types and why. These type of insights can truly assist form your future social networks technique and allow you to take a more data-led method instead of one based upon instinct and uncertainty.
How to Do Historical Benchmarking?
Arguably the most popular social networks metric that online marketers care most about is Engagement Rate (ER). It’s not an ideal metric however ER benefits determining the level of engagement throughout your posts on any social channel.
If your Facebook Engagement Rate is 1.09% (displayed in the example listed below), how do you understand if that’s great or bad? Month-on-month reporting can offer the essential context and enable you to see the development of your metrics in time.
Figure 1: Historical social networks benchmarking
Not just can you benchmark efficiency versus yourself in time, however likewise cross-channel. For example, Facebook vs. Instagram vs. TikTok.
Another beneficial information source is broad criteria like the Facebook Engagement Rate Benchmark powered by the numerous countless profiles indexed daily by Social Status:
Like any criteria, the month-to-month typical relocations continuously so it’s important to comprehend the broad patterns at the channel level and how they might or might not affect your own efficiency. This is likewise super-useful for discussing efficiency modifications to stakeholders or customers.
How to Do Competitor Benchmarking?
The 2nd method to carry out social networks benchmarking protests rivals. Many online marketers attempt to search for “industry averages” however criteria like these are constantly rather manipulated and can be deceptive.
Let’s state you run a little independent production studio. Does it make good sense to benchmark yourself versus the “Entertainment” market criteria that includes brand names like Universal and Sony Pictures? Probably not. This is why it’s finest to “roll your own” criteria and specify the rivals yourself. That method, your comparing apples with apples and getting a more precise and appropriate view of the fundamental average.
If you don’t understand who your rivals are, it’s time to do some research study! Look for brand names and companies that speak with the exact same type of target market that you do. It’s specifically beneficial to determine rivals in your nation or area given that efficiency metrics are rather various internationally due to how audiences act and respond on social networks worldwide.
Figure 3: Competitor social networks benchmarking
When benchmarking versus rivals, you can evaluate private post efficiency (like in the example above) or take a look at profile-level efficiency. Either method, you’ll establish a rival’s typical rapidly. You can then utilize this to either show how well you are carrying out vs. rivals or set an objective to increase efficiency to a minimum of the rival average.
Integrating Social Benchmarking as part of Reporting
Social media benchmarking isn’t simply a one-off workout. It must be utilized as a consistent recommendation check as part of your continuous weekly, month-to-month or quarterly social reporting.
Leaning on historic and rival criteria supplies stakeholders with the included context and eliminates any 2nd thinking that may be inaccurate.
When providing your social networks reports, you require to manage the story and guide your stakeholders down pre-determined sensible conclusions. Some of these may be the requirement to increase resources to produce more high quality material or the requirement to change publishing frequency vs. content quality or the requirement to increase paid social costs.
All these discussions end up being much easier and more data-driven if your social networks reporting backs up your argument and specifies a strong service case.
