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You’ve been posting on social media to promote your brand, but now you need to actually report on how those posts did. So now you’re putting together your first social media report, wondering which metrics are most important to highlight.

If you open up any social media analytics tool, whether it’s the built-in Instagram or TikTok analytics or a report in Vista Social, there’s a ton of data in there. But which numbers actually mean you’re doing well?

Let’s dive into some of the most essential social media metrics you should be tracking for your brand—plus, take a quiz that can help you pinpoint the best ones specific to your strategy.

What are social media metrics?

Social media metrics are data and insights that help you track how well your social media content is performing. They include metrics like:

• Likes
• Comments
• Shares
• Engagement rate
• Click-through rate

Pretty much any interaction someone could have with your brand’s social media presence can be found via social media metrics. These metrics tell you things like:

• How many people are you reaching with your content?
• Are people interested in your content?
• Is your content helping people find your business?

You can find these metrics in each social media app or by pulling a report with a tool like Vista Social:

But not every metric means all that much to your bottom line, so it’s important to focus on the data that actually matters.

Why is it important to track your social media metrics?

Tracking your metrics is an essential part of managing a social media strategy. If you don’t take a look back at your content’s performance, you’ll never know what’s resonating with your audience.

And if you don’t know what’s resonating with your audience (is this feeling a bit like “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” to anyone else?), you won’t know if your content is on the right track or if you need to try something new in order to generate tangible results (like a bigger following, more awareness, or sales and conversions).

But that’s just the beginning. Let’s dig into a few more reasons why tracking your social media metrics cannot be glossed over:.

Understand what resonates with your audience

More on what we just talked about. Metrics reveal which content formats and topics drive the most engagement, helping you create more of what your audience actually wants to see from your brand.

For example, you might have planned to create a series diving into plant health for your online plant shop, but you’ve realized that your audience would actually prefer getting plant decorating ideas.

You wouldn’t be able to learn which of your content is performing better and lean into it if you ignored your analytics.

Optimize your content strategy in real time

Rather than waiting weeks or months to evaluate a campaign, tracking metrics allows you to spot trends early and pivot quickly when something isn’t working. 

Social media marketing already takes time to make an impact, so you want to cut that down where you can. Paying attention to your metrics is a crucial step to helping you boost strategy performance before you get too far in the opposite direction.

Set meaningful goals and track progress

Without baseline metrics, goal-setting becomes guesswork. And guesswork…is not strategic. When you track your metrics, you can set tangible goals that you can actively work towards.

Plus, consistent tracking helps you generate progress reports and benchmarks to measure against. This way you can celebrate real wins in your post performance.

Stay ahead of the competition

Monitoring your metrics alongside industry benchmarks reveals where you lead and where you lag, giving you a clear roadmap for outperforming competitors. We’ll cover some competitive benchmarking metrics to keep an eye on later in this article.

Prove ROI and justify your budget

Higher ups want to see actual social media ROI, but you won’t have anything to show them if you ignore your metrics for each platform.

Gathering analytics data will give you the evidence you need not just to prove the value of what you’re doing but also to justify (and maybe even increase) your budget and team size.

20 social media metrics you should be tracking

Don’t go into your reporting blind. Walk through this guide with us as we introduce you to 20 social media metrics you’ll want to track and why.

Awareness metrics

Awareness metrics tell you how far your content has traveled and how many people have encountered your brand. These indicate whether your content strategy is putting your brand in front of the right audiences.

1. Impressions

Impressions tell you the total number of times your content is seen, regardless of whether it was clicked or engaged with. A single user might generate multiple impressions if they see your post more than once. 

A high impressions-to-reach ratio suggests your content is being shown repeatedly to the same audience, which can be useful for brand recall but may also signal the need to broaden your targeting.

2. Reach

Reach represents the total number of unique users who have seen your content. Unlike impressions, reach counts each person only once, giving you a clearer picture of your actual audience size.

Monitoring reach over time helps you gauge whether your content distribution is expanding or contracting.

3. Follower growth rate

Follower count can be a good metric to follow, but an even better one is actually paying attention to the rate at which your audience grows. 

A steady growth rate indicates that your content strategy is consistently attracting new followers, while sudden spikes or drops can help you identify which campaigns or events have the greatest impact on audience acquisition.

Engagement metrics

Engagement metrics reveal how your audience interacts with your content. High engagement signals that your content resonates with your audience and encourages meaningful interaction.

The social media algorithm likes this, which can help boost your content to even more feeds. Long story short: You want to see high engagement metrics.

4. Engagement rate

Engagement rate is the percentage of people who interact with your content relative to those who see it. It typically includes likes, comments, shares, and saves. 

This is one of the most important metrics to track because it normalizes performance against your audience size, allowing you to compare content effectiveness over time and across platforms.

You can calculate your own engagement rate, but Vista Social’s post performance report does all of the work for you.

5. Likes/reactions

Likes (or reactions on platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn) are the most basic indicator that someone is interested in your content. However, it’s better to pay attention to more intentional interactions like comments or shares.

6. Comments

Comments require more effort than a simple like, making them a stronger indicator of audience interest and investment. Tracking comment volume and sentiment provides insight into how deeply your content connects with your audience. A healthy comment section often signals an active, loyal community.

7. Shares

Shares extend your content’s reach organically, acting as personal endorsements from your audience. If someone is sharing your content with their friends, they obviously really like it—or at least think someone else will!

8. Saves

Saves, particularly on platforms like Instagram, indicate that users find your content valuable enough to revisit. Both metrics are strong signals of high-quality content that platforms tend to reward with greater visibility.

Video performance metrics

With video dominating social feeds across every major platform, tracking video-specific metrics is essential for brands investing in this format.

9. Video views

Video views tell you how many people are watching your video content. It’s important to keep tabs on how many eyes your videos get so you can see which ones seem to be more popular than others.

10. Watch time

Now while your video views tell you how many people started watching, watch time reveals how long they stayed. 

Average watch time and total watch time are more meaningful than view counts alone because they indicate whether your content holds attention. Platforms like YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram Reels all use watch time as a key ranking signal.

11. Completion rate

Completion rate measures the percentage of viewers who watch your video from start to finish. A high completion rate signals compelling content, while a steep drop-off early on may suggest your hook needs work. Analyzing where viewers leave helps you refine components like pacing and length.

Conversion metrics

Conversion metrics bridge the gap between social engagement and business impact. They demonstrate how your social presence drives tangible results like website visits, lead generation, and revenue.

12. Click-through rate (CTR)

Your click-through rate (CTR) measures the percentage of people who click on a link in your post relative to total views or impressions. 

A strong CTR indicates that your content and call-to-action are compelling enough to drive traffic beyond the platform. This metric is especially important for brands or platforms focused on driving website traffic.

13. Conversion rate

Conversion rate tracks the percentage of social media visitors who complete a desired action, i.e., making a purchase, signing up for a trial, or downloading a resource. 

By connecting your social analytics to your website analytics through UTM parameters and tracking pixels, you can attribute real revenue to your social media efforts.

14. Cost per click (CPC)

For paid social campaigns, your cost per click (CPC) measures how efficiently your ad spend generates results. CPC tells you what you pay for each click to your website or landing page. Monitoring these metrics ensures your paid strategy delivers a positive return on investment.

15. Cost per acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) is another metric that gives you insight into your ad spend. Your CPA reveals the cost of each conversion, which is key for ensuring you’re not paying more to earn a customer than that customer is spending with you.

Customer care metrics

Social media is increasingly the first place customers turn for support. Tracking customer care metrics helps ensure your brand is responsive and that your social team is effectively managing incoming inquiries.

16. Response time

Average response time measures how quickly your team replies to comments, messages, and mentions. Faster response times improve customer satisfaction and signal to your audience that your brand is attentive and reliable. 

Many social management platforms (like Vista Social in the report above) provide this metric automatically to help you benchmark your team’s performance.

17. Sentiment analysis

Sentiment analysis categorizes incoming messages and mentions as positive, negative, or neutral. Tracking sentiment trends over time helps you catch emerging issues early, measure the impact of campaigns on brand perception, and understand the overall health of your customer relationships on social media.

Competitive analysis metrics

Your metrics are most meaningful when viewed in context. And that means comparing your own performance to that of your closest competitors or your industry as a whole.

Looking at your competitive analysis metrics helps you see how you’re actually performing in a way that actually matters.

18. Share of voice

Your share of voice covers how many mentions your brand gets in your industry compared to how many mentions your competitors get. You can use social listening tools to help you gather these numbers and determine your brand’s social share of voice.

19. Industry benchmarking

Industry benchmarking compares your performance against similar brands to help you understand whether you’re leading or lagging behind in key areas like follower growth, posting frequency, engagement rates, brand awareness, and reach.

20. Competitor benchmarking

Benchmarking helps answer critical strategic questions: 

• Are we posting enough compared to our competitors? 
• Is our engagement rate above or below the industry average? 
• Where should we focus our efforts to gain a competitive edge? 

Without this context, even strong-looking metrics may mask underperformance relative to your market.

Which social media metrics should your brand track? (QUIZ)

Want to know which social media metrics your brand should be tracking? This quiz can help you out based on the type of business you’re marketing, your platforms of choice, and more.

Track your social media metrics with Vista Social

Keeping an eye on your most important social media metrics is an essential part of any marketing strategy. These 20 metrics should have some place in your reporting process.

And Vista Social can help. With a number of preset reports, plus the ability to create a custom report with the most important metrics to you, you can get your key metrics right in front of you every month.

Create your account today to get started.

Social media metrics FAQs

What is the difference between reach and impressions?

Reach refers to the number of unique users who see your content, while impressions count the total number of times your content is displayed, regardless of whether it is clicked. Both metrics provide insights into your content’s visibility.

What is a good conversion rate for social media?

A good conversion rate varies by industry and specific goals, but generally, rates between 2% to 5% are considered average. Monitoring your own conversion rates over time is essential for evaluating performance.

How often should I review my social media metrics?

Regularly reviewing your essential social media metrics—ideally weekly or monthly—can help you stay informed about your performance, allowing you to make timely adjustments to your strategy.

What are some common mistakes to avoid when tracking social media metrics?

Common mistakes include focusing on vanity metrics (like follower count) instead of meaningful engagement metrics, failing to set clear goals, neglecting to analyze data consistently, and not adjusting strategies based on insights gained.