Video and social media marketing go hand-in-hand. From TikTok to YouTube, businesses leave no stone unturned when it comes to engaging more of their audience with video.
But social video marketing is so much more than creating content. It’s also about choosing the right metrics to track so we can measure the success of the social media video marketing campaigns.
The thing is, with so many metrics to choose from, it can be challenging to determine which ones to track.
We’ve listed popular video marketing metrics and actionable practices to choose the must-track ones for your social media campaigns.
Why Do You Need to Define Video Metrics?
Imagine spending all of your budget and energy on your best social media marketing, but you can’t even tell whether it’s successful or failed in the first place. This is why you need well-thought video metrics to understand how well the campaign is performing.
Here are some reasons why you should have prioritized metrics in a social media video marketing campaign:
Measuring Effectiveness
Metrics provide quantifiable data that allows you to evaluate the performance of your campaigns and initiatives. Therefore, they help you assess the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
Without metrics, it would be challenging to determine the impact of your marketing strategies and make informed decisions for improvement.
Tracking Progress
Metrics enable you to track your progress toward achieving your marketing goals. This helps you stay on course and adjust to ensure you move in the right direction.
Monitoring progress using metrics provides a more comprehensive insight into the factors contributing to your success. Progress is a big motivator, and visually representing tangible improvements reassures you that your efforts yield positive outcomes.
Data-Driven Decision-Making
Metrics provide you with objective data that supports decision-making. Instead of relying on guesswork or intuition, metrics offer concrete evidence of what’s working and what’s not.
This data-driven approach makes it much easier to make informed choices about where to allocate resources, prioritize strategies, and optimize areas for better results.
Return on Investment (ROI) Analysis
Metrics are crucial in measuring the return on investment for your marketing activities. By analyzing metrics such as conversions, click-through rates, or average view time, you can determine the effectiveness and profitability of your social video marketing efforts.
You can allocate your budget more efficiently and identify the most effective channels and strategies.
Continuous Improvement
Metrics act as a feedback mechanism allowing you to improve your marketing initiatives continuously. By tracking metrics over time, you can identify trends, patterns, and areas of improvement.
This feedback loop helps you refine your strategies, experiment with new approaches, and optimize your marketing efforts for better results.
Accountability and Reporting
Metrics provide a means to demonstrate the value and impact of your marketing activities to stakeholders, clients, or management. By presenting tangible metrics and data, you can showcase the outcomes and justify the resources invested in your marketing initiatives.
With this accountability and reporting, you can build credibility and support for future marketing endeavors with less effort.
Popular Video Metrics to Track for Social Media Marketing
There are no one-size-fits-all video metrics. The best one depends on your video adjectives or goals.
But, we will explore some of the most important video metrics to track for social media marketing and how businesses can use these metrics to improve their social media marketing strategies.
View Count
View count is the most basic metric that you can track for your social media video marketing campaign. It tells you how many times your video has been viewed– which also translates to how popular your video is.
Although it is a simple metric, it provides a good indication of the popularity of your video. However, it is important to note that view count can be misleading.
For example, a viewer may only watch a few seconds of your video before moving on, which would still count as a view. Therefore, it is essential to look at other metrics to get a better understanding of your video’s performance.
Engagement Rate
The engagement rate is a crucial metric that measures how viewers interact with your video. It includes metrics such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks.
Engagement rate provides a better understanding of how your video resonates with your target audience. A high engagement rate indicates that your video is creating a buzz and generating interest among your audience.
Audience Retention
Audience retention measures how much of your video viewers are watching. It tells you how long viewers are staying engaged with your content. By tracking the retention, it would be much easier for you to identify which parts of your video are causing viewers to drop off.
You can use this information to make improvements to your video content, such as editing out less engaging parts or making changes to keep viewers engaged throughout the video.
Conversion Rate
Conversion rate measures the percentage of viewers who take action after watching your video. This could be signing up for a newsletter, purchasing a product, or filling out a form.
This metric is important because it tells you how effective your video is at driving conversions. It provides a good indication of your video’s return on investment (ROI).
Reach
Reach measures how many people have seen your video. It tells you how far your video has been shared and how many people it has reached. This metric helps you identify how well your video is performing in terms of visibility.
If your video has a high reach, it means that it is being shared widely and is generating interest among your target audience.
How to Choose the Right Video Metrics for Your Social Media Campaign
Choosing the right video metrics can provide valuable insights into your campaign’s performance, identify areas for improvement, and help you make data-driven decisions to optimize your social media video marketing strategy.
Here’s how to choose the right video metrics to track for social media marketing and how each metric can provide valuable insights into your campaign’s performance.
Define your marketing goals
Before you start tracking video metrics, it’s important to define your marketing goals. Ask yourself what you want to achieve with your marketing campaign, whether it’s to increase brand awareness, generate leads, or drive sales.
By clearly defining your goals, you can identify the video metrics that are most relevant to your campaign.
Identify your target audience
Understanding your target audience is crucial when it comes to selecting the right video metrics. Consider the demographics of your audience, their behavior, and their preferences.
This information will help you determine which metrics are most meaningful to your audience and which will provide you with the most valuable insights.
Focus on engagement metrics
Engagement metrics such as views, likes, comments, and shares are important for measuring the impact of your video content.
They can give you insights into how well your video resonates with your audience and how much they engage with your brand.
Look beyond vanity metrics
While views and likes are important, it’s important to look beyond these vanity metrics to better understand how your video content is performing.
Metrics such as watch time, retention rate, and click-through rate can provide more meaningful insights into how your video is performing and how it’s driving engagement.
Monitor and adjust
Once you’ve identified the metrics most important to your marketing campaign, monitoring them regularly and making adjustments as needed is important.
Use the insights you gain from your metrics to optimize your video content and improve your marketing campaign over time.
Use a combination of metrics
It’s important to remember that no single metric can tell the whole story of how your video content is performing on social media. Instead, using a combination of metrics is often necessary to get a complete picture of your video’s impact.
For example, you might look at engagement metrics like views and shares and conversion metrics like click-through rates and conversions.
Consider the platform
Different social media platforms have different video metrics that are relevant to their specific audiences and content formats. For example, on YouTube, watch time and audience retention are important metrics, while on Instagram, views, likes, and comments are more relevant.
When selecting video metrics for your marketing campaign, consider the platform where your video content will be published and the most meaningful metrics for that platform’s audience.
Popular Analytics Tools to Track Your Metrics
Tracking your prioritized video metrics seems like a lot of effort. Thanks to the internet, though. Tons of analytics tools can do all the math for you. Social media platforms usually have a built-in analytic feature to help you understand how your video content is performing. But if you want to go the extra mile, here are some of the analytics tools you can use:
Hootsuite
As a social media management platform, Hootsuite provides video analytics as part of its comprehensive suite of features. This tool allows you to schedule and publish videos across multiple social media platforms.
Its video analytics provide insights into video performance, including views, engagement metrics, audience demographics, and social interactions. It helps you track the success of your video content and optimize your social media marketing strategies.
Buffer
Buffer is another popular social media management tool that offers video analytics capabilities. Along with scheduling and publishing videos, Buffer provides analytics to measure the performance of your videos on various social media platforms.
You can track key metrics such as views, engagement, likes, comments, and shares. Buffer’s analytics help you understand how your video content resonates with your audience and make data-driven decisions to improve your social media marketing efforts.
Viralstat
Viralstat is a dedicated video analytics tool that focuses on providing in-depth insights into video content across different social media platforms. It offers comprehensive analytics for YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok videos.
Viralstat tracks various metrics such as views, engagement, growth, audience demographics, and competitor analysis. The tool also offers sentiment analysis and content recommendations to optimize your video strategies and drive better results.
Wistia
Wistia is a well-known video hosting and analytics platform primarily used by businesses for hosting and analyzing their marketing videos. Its analytics feature provides detailed insights into viewer engagement, including metrics like play rate, engagement graphs, heatmaps, and viewer drop-off points.
It also offers lead generation tools, integration with marketing automation platforms, and A/B testing capabilities to optimize your video marketing campaigns.
Vidyard
Like Wistia, Vidyard is a video hosting and analytics platform designed for businesses. It offers advanced analytics to measure the performance and impact of your videos. This tool tracks metrics like views, engagement, play rate, viewer heatmaps, and viewer attention span.
Additionally, it provides tools for video personalization, interactive video elements, and integration with marketing automation systems. Vidyard’s analytics help you understand how your videos influence your target audience and drive results.
Wrapping Up Video Marketing Metrics
Choosing the right video metrics to track for your social media marketing campaign can make a significant difference in the success of your campaign. By optimizing your video content based on video metrics, you can improve your return on investment (ROI) for your social media marketing campaign.
Remember that social media video marketing strategy isn’t an overnight job. Therefore, defining and tracking metrics aren’t a one-time task. Recognizing that successful video marketing requires continuous effort and a data-driven approach is crucial. As your strategy evolves and adapts, so should your chosen metrics.
Regularly evaluating and adjusting the metrics you track will enable you to stay aligned with your objectives and gauge the effectiveness of your campaigns accurately. By consistently monitoring metrics over time, you’ll gain valuable insights that can inform strategic decisions, optimize content, and ensure long-term success in your social media video marketing endeavors.