In a recent blog post, How to Leverage Muslim Consumer Behavior Online with Social Media Marketing we discussed how to successfully market your brand or organization to Muslims on social media.
Today we take a look at the metrics you can use to see if your social media strategy for Muslim users is working.
The So-Called Vanity Metrics
Yes, let’s talk about likes, shares, and comments. It is typical for marketers to hear something and repeat it without going back and looking at whether it is relevant for their audience or not.
There has been a lot of talk about likes, shares, and comments not being relevant to social media success. The buzz word used to label these metrics is ‘vanity metrics’. One of the biggest arguments is that people may watch your video or read the written content that you posted without participating.
This is quite true, how many times have you viewed or watched a piece of content online that moved you to tears and then moved on to the next one without even liking or sharing it. That happens quite a bit, right?
The thing is, if someone does take the time to like, share, or comment, it’s because the content is not just enjoyable to them but is newsworthy and they want everyone to know that it is beneficial and worth taking the time to view or read. It’s basically a testimonial.
Shares are particularly useful in helping you reach your second-level network. This is a group of people you don’t have access to unless your content is deemed valuable enough to be shared by your primary network.
So if you don’t get as many likes, shares, and comments, don’t panic. However, if you do, then know that your content is being validated by your audience.
The Muslim Audience Reaching Out to You
Remember that when you are marketing to Muslims, you are targeting a very niche audience. They know that you are accessible as a business. If your content resonates with them and they believe that you know what you are talking about, they will definitely reach out to you.
They will have questions about your product or service. For example, because of the issue of halal products, you might have Muslim users inquire about your halal certification. If you are a B2B business, for example, they will want to know the terms of working with you as captured below with several users approaching Muslim Ad Network on Facebook:
Social Media Mentions from Muslim Users
You can use a tool like HootSuite to have all your social media scheduling in one place. But you will also be able to monitor who is mentioning you on different social media channels. An increase in social media mentions is an indication that awareness for your Muslim brand is growing.
You should not only keep an eye at the quantity of the mentions but also the quality of it. Random bots mentioning you in spam posts are not what you want to have. The sentiment of the mentions is also important. You are looking for the positive reception of your business on social media. This is especially true if your social media goals are reputation or customer service oriented.
Muslim Social Media Followers
The number of followers on your social media platform is a good indication of how well you are doing. However, even more, important than that is the steadiness in your follower growth rate. As your business grows, so should your audience.
A common scenario that you don’t want to see is a large growth of followers at the start, only for those numbers to hit a plateau and hold steady or decline. If this happens you’ll need to reevaluate your efforts to connect with your audience.
Just keep in mind that the quality of a social media following is very important. This can generally be measured by their participation. You may have thousands of followers who don’t interact with your posts very often, if at all. Or you could have a few hundred followers who enthusiastically engage with every piece of content you create for them.
You might also want to keep an eye on your unfollow rate. Even the most successful social media accounts experience unfollows. This happens quite often when running a contest or promotion. So keep an eye out for a spike in people unfollowing your brand on social media after a promo.
Other reasons for getting unfollowed can be:
- a shift in your posting frequency;
- trying a new strategy;
- change in voice tone; or
- change in content and visual style.
Muslims Participating in Your Social Media Events
Do you have a large group of attendees during your live video event on LinkedIn? Is your Facebook Watch Party popular among the Muslim audience? If the answer is yes, then you are doing quite well.
Other metrics that can help you gauge interest from your Muslim audience on social media are participation rates for casts and polls. Your Muslim customers – especially because it’s a niche- enjoy knowing that their input and opinions are being heard and valued. So the engagement rate should be high.
If this is not the case for you, use incentives to encourage your Muslim audience to share photos, videos, or stories with you. Such user-generated content or activity might even attract new followers, or bring new subscribers to your email list.
When more of your followers are actively participating in these promotions, you’re building a more engaged audience.
Muslim User Behavior After They Leave Your Social Media Platform
Here’s the thing. You are not targeting Muslim audiences on social media just for the sake of it right? At the end of the day, your business cannot survive on likes and shares. You want your followers to take action on your website and commit to a primary call-to-action like a purchase.
Here are some things that need to keep an eye on:
Website Metrics
How your audience behaves once they leave your social media platform and land on your website is vital to your business success. Why? Because ultimately, your website is your most important marketing tool.
If engagement is great on your social media platform but the user behavior on your website by the same people is awful you are in trouble. It might be that the expectations that you offered on your social media platform don’t match with the user experience on your website.
Bounce Rates
Check for high bounce rates: users landing on the page you promoted on social media and immediately leaving without clicking through to other pages.
If you experience high bounce rates reevaluate your website’s content and design to understand why you’re not capturing their interest. Also, reexamine your social media campaigns to evaluate the Muslim audience you’re reaching.
Average Time Spent on Your Website
So let’s say your website visitors from your social media platform don’t bounce right after the first page they land on. Now you need to compare the time they spent on your website with the time spent by other referred visitors. If your social media referrals are spending significantly more time on your site, then you’re on the right path.
Business Metrics
Some brands that target Muslims on social media forget that they are a business. They get too engaged in entertaining and creating interesting content for their followers. It can easily happen to you too. Make sure you keep an eye on the ball at all times to see if your social media efforts are in line with your business goals.
Generated Leads
The definition of a quality lead differs per business depending on business goals. However, your business must have a solid definition of a quality lead at the outset of a social media campaign. If you’re campaigning on social media results in poor leads consistently, your ideal customer may be on a different social media platform than the one you’ve focused on.
Ad Value of Social Media Referral Traffic
Assign a monetary value to your social media referral traffic. You can do this by calculating how much money you would have spent if those visitors had been referred to your site by pay-per-click (PPC) ads. This is a simple approximated value since social media and PPC are not the only two sources of site traffic.
Here’s how you would do it:
- A PPC ad for your target audience costs $1.75.
- You received 50 visitors today from a link you posted on Instagram.
- The value of 50 visitors referred by that PPC ad (50 x $1.75) is $87.5.
This means that you received approximately $87.5 worth of traffic from Instagram today. You now have a standard against which you can compare your social media campaign to measure relative ROI.
Sales and Revenue
Here is a simple but extremely important question to ask yourself: “Has there been a significant increase in your sales and revenue numbers since you began utilizing social media marketing?”
Besides other factors that impact your bottom line including other marketing campaigns, take a look at your sales figures. Find out how they correspond with a new or increased social media presence. A charity or other non-profit organization can measure the number and size of donations coming in.
In conclusion, if you don’t measure you don’t know. When you don’t know you can’t improve. When you don’t improve, you are giving your competition the opportunity to overtake you. So make sure you always have these metrics in mind.
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