Top Social Media Metrics and What They Mean

So you’ve created a video content marketing strategy. Hooray! First hurdle over and done with. But how do you know it’s working? How do you know what your content is doing? Is it effective? Reaching the right audience? 

Social media platforms have different ways of assessing, analysing and measuring your video content. These are called metrics. This doesn’t just include who interacts with your video, as in likes and comments underneath it. More intricate analyses show the number of seconds or minutes your video was viewed for, how many times users visited your profile and the demographics of your audience.

These all vary significantly depending on the social media platform because they all measure different types of metrics. Whilst some specifically investigate video content interaction, others also analyse where your followers are coming from and how often they connect with your page. 

Regularly checking these statistics will show you what video content needs a bit of tweaking and what you should hone in on. This kind of analysis is essential for the steady progression and success of your video content marketing strategy, as you’ll have a clearer understanding of improvements. You’ll save time with creating future content because you’ll know exactly what to focus on. 

We’ve outlined below the metrics of 7 different social media platforms, so you know precisely what to look for and where.

Facebook

Facebook videos garner an average engagement rate of 0.26%. Compare this to the 0.18% engagement rate standard Facebook posts achieve, it’s easy to see why video is an effective and necessary tactic in revamping your content marketing strategy. Facebook also offers other flexible ways of promoting video content through Facebook Live and Facebook Watch, which have also increased in popularity. 

The engagement rate is calculated by dividing the number of people engaged with the content by the number of people who viewed the content, multiplied by 100. Watching a video for more than 3 seconds counts as a view on Facebook.

These are the metrics for Facebook:

1. Reach – the number of users your video was promoted to
2. Engagement – the frequency of user interaction with your video
3. Average video watch time – how long users spent watching your video
4. Peak live viewers (if streamed on Facebook Live) – most live viewers you had at one time
5. Minutes viewed – the number of total minutes viewers watched your video
6. 1-minute video views (only for videos at least 1 minute long) – the number of viewers who watched your video for more than 1 minute
7. 10-second video views (only for videos at least 10 seconds long) – the number of viewers who watched your video for more than 10 seconds
8. 3-second video views – the number of viewers who watched your video for more than 3 seconds
9. Audience retention – how well an audience is interested in your video before they stop watching
10. Audience – viewer demographics, such as their location
11. Top videos – your most popular videos
12. Unique viewers – the number of unique users who watched your video

To access your Facebook metrics, go to your Facebook page and click on the Insights tab.

Twitter

A view on Twitter counts if your video was viewed for 2 or more seconds and the video took up 50% of the user’s screen. Video views on Twitter increased by 62% from 2019 to 2020, with a 72% increase in watch time. The popularity of video content is still an upward trend, so incorporating this into your content marketing strategy will gain you more brownie points and boost your brand’s prominence.

Here are the metrics to look out for on Twitter:

1. Impressions – the number of times users saw your Tweet
2. Media views – the number of times users watched your video
3. Total engagement – the frequency of users interacting with your Tweet
4. Likes – the number of likes your Tweet generated
5. Details expand – the frequency of users viewing the details of your Tweet
6. Replies – the number of replies your Tweet received
7. Retweets – the number of times your Tweet was retweeted

To access your Twitter metrics, click on your Tweet with the video attached to it and go to Video Tweet Activity.

Instagram

Same as Facebook, a view on Instagram counts if your video was watched for more than 3 seconds. Videos on Instagram garner more engagement than photos because the social media platform offers a multitude of ways of promoting video content. These include IGTV, Instagram Live, and Reels. Whilst on Instagram Live users can watch unedited footage and be in the moment with your branding, Reels help you organize specific video content into topics and themes, clarifying your company’s values and projects and making this information more accessible.

If you have a personal account, you can only see likes, comments and how many people saved your video. With a business profile, there are other metrics to keep track of.

1. Views – the number of users who viewed your video for 3 seconds or more
2. Likes – the number of users who liked your video
3. Comments – the number of users who commented on your video
4. Profile visits – the number of users who visited your profile after watching your video 
5. Messages – the number of users who messaged your page after watching your video
6. Follows – the number of users who follows your account
7. Reach – the number of users your video reaches
8. Saves – the number of users who saved your video to their Insta Collections
9. Impressions – the number of times users saw your post

To access your Instagram metrics, click on your video or post on your feed and click View Insights at the bottom of the video. The Insights tab will come up with your metrics.

Snapchat

As Snapchat thrives off photos and videos rather than text-based posts, views of videos are shorter. If someone watches a video on Snapchat for more than 1 second, that counts as a view.

Unfortunately, analytics tools are only available to verified influencers and brands with a large following on Snapchat Insights. If you are lucky enough to be one of these accounts, here’s a list of the metrics to look out for:

1. Unique views – the number of different users who opened the first video on your Snapchat story for more than 1 second
2. View time – the number of minutes viewers watched of your Snapchat videos
3. Completion rate – the percentage of users who finished watching your Snapchat story
4. Screenshots – how many times users took a screenshot of your Snapchat story
5. Demographics – a breakdown of the gender, age and location of users who watch your Snapchat story

If you create a Snapchat Ad, you can access a greater variety of metrics.

To access your metrics on Snapchat, open the app, click on your profile photo to take you to your home screen, then go to the Insights tab below My Story.

YouTube

YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine and social media platform. Unlike Facebook and Instagram, a view counts as little as 30 seconds. However, in the past YouTube has had a problem with users deliberately trying to prove that their video has been viewed a huge amount of times in the hope of paid promotion by YouTube itself. As a result, YouTube doesn’t specify what counts as a view and what doesn’t. To stop watch bots and spammers from manipulating and falsifying this data, YouTube has two specific criteria for counting views:

1. A user purposely requests to watch a video
2. The user watches the video for at least 30 seconds

For videos shorter than 30 seconds, the viewing data is less clear. The 30-second time limit helps YouTube decide if a video is worth monetising, and videos shorter than that cannot earn revenue.  

1. Watch time – the length of time users are watching your videos
2. Audience retention – the regularity of users watching your videos and when they stop watching
3. Demographics – the data behind your viewers, including the countries they’re from
4. Playback locations – where in the world people are watching your videos
5. Traffic sources – where online people are discovering your videos
6. Devices – the percentage of your videos watched on different appliances

To access metrics for YouTube, click on your profile and go to Creator Studio. You’ll see the Creator Studio dashboard where you can access Analytics on the left panel.

TikTok

Reaching over 2 billion downloads in 2020, TikTok is now the seventh most popular social networking site. As there are no photos or text-based posts on this social media platform, a view counts as soon as it starts playing in your feed. If you have a Pro Account, you can access more metrics. To do this, simply go to Settings, click on Manage My Account, go to Switch to Pro Account, and then follow the instructions.

With certain metrics on TikTok, you can see data for your videos over the past 7 or 28 days. As this information is broken down by each day, you can develop a much clearer idea of what video content works best and when.

1. Video views – the number of times your video was watched 
2. Followers – the number of followers your account has amassed 
3. Profile views – the number of times users viewed your profile 
4. Trending videos – your top videos with the fastest growth 
5. Followers – the number of followers you have
6. Gender – the gender breakdown of your followers
7. Top territories – the location of your followers by territory
8. Follower activity – the times your followers are most active on TikTok
9. Videos your followers watched – your most popular videos
10. Sounds followers listened to – the most popular TikTok songs and soundbites with followers

To access your TikTok metrics, go to Settings and click on Analytics under the Account section.

LinkedIn

On LinkedIn, a view counts for more than 2 seconds whilst the video takes up at least 50% of the screen. These are the metrics on LinkedIn you should check:

1. Plays – the number of times your video was played
2. Views – the number of times users watched your video for at least 2 seconds
3. View rate – the number of views multiplied by 100
4. Estimated cost per view – if you’ve spent money on video promotion, this gives you an idea of your ROI (return on investment)
5. Views at 25% – the number of times users watched up to a quarter of your video’s length
6. Views at 50% – the number of times users watched up to half of your video’s length
7. Views at 75% – the number of times users watched up to three-quarters of your video’s length
8. Completions – the number of users watching at least 97% of your video
9. Completion rate – the number of times users watched the whole video
10. Full screen plays – how often users watched your video in full-screen mode

To access your LinkedIn metrics, click on the Me profile icon, go to Manage, then to Posts and Activity. You can then locate your video through the Posts tab and click on the Analytics button beneath your video.

Final Thoughts

Keeping in mind the different metrics various social media platforms measure will really optimise your audience engagement and brand awareness. This type of raw data will help you analyse where your video content marketing strategy is striking the right chord with your viewers and what needs amending. With over 2000 videos, both animated and live-action, we can sort all of the logistics associated with your video, meaning no hassle or stress on your part. Still interested? Give us a call to get our creative partnership started.