How do you know if people are engaging with your content? It’s time for a deep-dive into the important metrics that matter because the numbers never lie. And if you’re not creating the right pieces content or putting it in the right places, you are going to struggle to grow your personal brand.
How knowing your numbers helps you build relationships
I am a big believer in listening to your audience. I do it in lots of different ways, including looking at the data on my blog posts, videos, podcast episodes, and social media. In fact, I have a virtual assistant whose job it is to keep a check on the numbers on my social media and let me know what people are saying.
I don’t measure the ROI of my social media to make myself feel good. I do this so that I know if I am bringing value and genuinely making a difference to people. By focusing on what people are saying on social media, social shares, in reviews of Youpreneur FM, in messages people send to me, I can see what people are interested in and where they want more help from me. Tracking the numbers and seeing what people are engaging with also helps me to see what’s working and what isn’t.
You need to be building long-term relationships with people. You might not know the person you are building a relationship with but they will know that they tune in every week or always look forward to getting your newsletter.
You’re aiming to become somebody’s favorite. If your open rate is low or no-one’s talking about the articles you put out, you need to think again about content performance and whether you are serving your perfect customer.
Deep-diving into the numbers is very powerful for your business. It takes the guesswork out of your content marketing strategy. Do more of what works. I am changing the format of Youpreneur FM to become a one-man show because I sat down and had a good look at the numbers. If you’re interested in the background to that then tune in to episode 350.
Deep-diving into the numbers is very powerful for your business. It helps you build relationships and takes the guesswork out of your content marketing strategy so you can focus on doing more of what works. #Youpreneur Click To TweetWhat is the goal of your content?
The metrics you are tracking depend on what you want to achieve with your content marketing. If you are just starting out with building your personal brand then you will be looking to generate brand awareness. This is about increasing the number of people who are aware of who you are and what you do.
If you are more established then you might be focused on increasing traffic to your website and getting people to stick around on there longer. In this case, you want to increase landing page views and returning visitors to your website as well as understand what your traffic sources are. Or you might be trying to build your list and want people to sign up so you’ll be interested in lead generation stats and your conversion rate.
Maybe you are looking to build authority and so you want to be booking speaking gigs. Have a clear idea of your goal is and then look at what metrics you’re going to use to measure your progress.
The metrics that matter – and the ones that don’t
Some metrics are more valuable than others. Fact. Do you want to know another fact? Too many people focus on the wrong ones.
You don’t want to waste your time with what are known as vanity metrics. This is how many followers you have and to a certain extent, how many likes something got. These are pretty meaningless. You might have thousands of followers, but how many of them have ever got in touch with you and had a conversation?
You need to focus on how engaged people are with your content and whether people are taking action in response to what you’re putting out. Are people commenting on your posts? Are they emailing you after reading or watching something you have put out? Is your audience sharing your content or telling other people that they are listening to your show? And, let’s be honest, because we are in business and we’re not putting out content just for the fun of it, are you making sales?
Content marketing metrics you must track on your website
What are the numbers you need to focus on? If you haven’t already got it, then hook your website up to Google Analytics. This will tell you how many people are coming to your site, where they are coming from, what they are looking at and whether they are leaving again straight away or clicking through to more pages.
All very useful for seeing whether you are delivering value, putting your efforts into the right places and creating the type of content they want. You can do this at a glance or go in and have a good long-term look.
This helps you find out key information about your audience so you can tailor your content marketing more effectively.
Where in the world are your visitors based?
Is traffic coming to you from a platform you don’t expect?
Is the time you are spending on a particular social media channel bringing in visitors?
What are your most read blog posts?
Which pages do most people land on?
The big one is conversions. You can set up goals in Google Analytics and track how your content results in people taking an action that matters to you. This is where you see if what you are doing is leading people to become customers. How many people hit the button to sign up to your newsletter or book a call with you or grab a ticket to your event?
By tracking what people do before they take action you can see where to spend your time most effectively.
What stats matter on social media?
Another area to drill down on is your social media. I mentioned before that you don’t want to be worrying about how many followers you have. You do want to focus on your engagement rate. Are people replying to you? Are they clicking on the links you’re sharing? If you’re sharing a lot of other people’s content then it’s useful to see if you’re sharing material which is interesting to your audience.
With video, the key thing to look at is watch time. How long do people watch your video for? Are they staying the course or just watching the first few seconds and moving on? If you’re not grabbing people’s attention at the start and holding it, then your message is not going to be heard.
How long people watch your video for is also how platforms like Youtube judge its quality. If someone’s watching all the way through, it must be good, and so they will show it to more people.
Spot the trends in your numbers
Whether you’re creating blog posts, videos, or podcast episodes, you need to look for the trends in your numbers. What are the most popular topics? What type of content do people respond to most? Is it How To guides or the times when you let people in behind the scenes more?
Checking your analytics every day is not a good use of your time. Schedule time to have a look at them each month and then get an overview every quarter. This gives you enough time to see if there’s a trend or if something is just a blip. Social media platforms and search engines are always tinkering with algorithms. You want to be sure that you’re making decisions on firm data, not responding to the latest update or a news story you’ve seen.
Focus on what content keeps people’s attention and where people are coming to you from. Learn what your audience loves to get from you and give them more of it.
Chris founded Youpreneur® in 2015. He is a serial entrepreneur, keynote speaker and author of the bestselling books “Virtual Freedom” and “Rise of the Youpreneur”. He hosts our weekly podcast, Youpreneur.FM, as well as our annual conference, the Youpreneur Summit. Chris is based in Cambridge, UK.
