Stop 05 · Social Media MarketingTopics · 10/10

Social Media Analytics

In short

Likes feel nice, but they don't tell you if social media is working. Analytics shows which posts reach new people, spark conversations, and send visitors to your site.

Tracking reach, engagement rate, follower growth and (critically) click-throughs or conversions from social — going beyond vanity metrics to understand what's actually driving business results.

The blob in a cricket cap studies a big scoreboard with bars and ticks beside a pitch.

Think of it like this

A cricket scorecard

A scorecard doesn't just show the total. It shows who scored, strike rates, and who got out cheaply. That's how a coach picks the next team. Social analytics is your scorecard for posts.

Watch it happen

From reach to results for one month

Reach 40,000

Engaged 3,200

Profile visits 900

Link taps 260

Sign-ups 45

1/5One month of Instagram insights for a small brand, plus sign-ups from GA4.

The big ideas

What you need to know

Reach and impressions

Reach is unique people. Impressions count every view, including repeats.

Engagement rate

Engagements divided by reach or followers. Pick one method and stick to it for fair comparisons.

Saves and shares

These often say more about value than likes do.

Clicks to your site

Use UTM links so GA4 shows which posts and platforms drove visits and sign-ups.

See it in code

Walk through the code

excel

1=SUM(C2:F2)/B22=AVERAGEIF(G2:G30,"Reel",H2:H30)3=LARGE(H2:H30,1)

1/3Engagement rate by reach for one post.

B is reach, C to F are likes, comments, shares and saves, G is format, H is engagement rate from the first formula.

Save yourself the pain

Common mistakes

Oops

Comparing your engagement rate with a celebrity's.

Do this instead

Compare with your own past months and similar-sized accounts in your niche.

Oops

Reporting likes as the main result.

Do this instead

Lead with reach growth, saves, shares, link taps and sign-ups, then likes.

Your mission

Score your own posts

~30 min

Quick check

Post A: 10,000 reach, 200 engagements. Post B: 2,000 reach, 160 engagements. Which had the higher engagement rate by reach?

Go deeper

1Pull analytics from a real or sample social account and identify the top-performing post.
2Learn to calculate engagement rate and understand why it's more useful than raw follower count.
3Practice connecting a social metric to a business outcome, not just reporting it in isolation.