How to evaluate the work of SMM-specialist and SMM in general

More and more entrepreneurs and businessmen are going to social networks to make sales and increase brand awareness. However, SMM specialists cannot guarantee a high result. The user is not interested in a product or service because of quality content or optimization. He buys a product or service because he is 100% sure of its usefulness. The main task of the SMM-specialist is to talk about the product in an interesting way in the media. But how to understand whether the work of a specialist pays off or not? How to evaluate SMM? And how do you evaluate the work of an SMM specialist?

KPI for SMM-manager

KPIs are key performance data in this area of Internet marketing. These indicators are important for both parties. It is important to determine the KPIs at the beginning of the collaboration. That is, both the customer should sit down and discuss the criteria by which the work of the SMM specialist will be evaluated. This will make it clear to the employee in what direction it is worth moving and in what direction it is not. The head – it will help to evaluate the effectiveness of the specialist. But let’s say at once: it is difficult to find KPIs that will suit both sides.

Two unresolved issues stand out in such discussions.

1. Many indicators can be faked, tweaked by resorting to technical tricks. The result is a biased assessment of a person’s work.
2. Some SMM-specialists work with metrics which they cannot influence. For example, some specialists are put unrealizable KPI – increase sales on the site. In the end all remain dissatisfied. Confidence in SMM specialists falls, customers do not want to cooperate with such specialists or leave them after a few months.

What will KPIs help with?

This metric is necessary for a person to understand certain tasks and goals and be able to work on them. That way both point A and point B will be clear.

Here are questions to think about ahead of time.

1. What is the end point?
2. How long before point B is reached?
3. Is there something you can do specifically, or will you delegate the leadership completely to an SMM specialist?

A normal KPI is different from a similar metric in SMM. As a rule, in this way you can evaluate the amount of work done, understand what tasks and goals have been achieved, and what the profit is. Usually employees are rewarded for exceeding this metric with gifts and bonuses.

If you buy an SMM service from a freelancer or an agency, it’s a different story. In this case, you are dealing with a clear KPI. If the indicator is not reached, then the work is not done, or done partially.

What KPIs to choose for evaluation?

In order to understand how to evaluate the work of an SMM specialist, you need to define the criteria. There is a myth that it is enough to ask what you want from the media and get a simple answer: “Sales”. And it seems that the dialogue is over, but everything is much more complicated. It’s clear that the goal of any business is to make a profit. But it is important to know why you resort to social media, why you do it in a certain period of time, what particular media you want to involve.

And there are many other methods of promotion and advertising.

Here is a sample list of questions to ask at the interview. Other questions follow from these, followed by valuable and honest answers from the business owner.

1. Describe what should happen on social media.
2. How will social media affect your business?
3. Have you made any purchases through social media? How has it been happening?
4. How do you see our work?
5. Are you already working with social media or are you just planning to start doing it?
6. Why have you decided to embrace media now?
7. How can I report on my work?
8. If there is no change after you turn to social media, what would be the consequences?

Of course, if the professional you are interviewing has not asked these questions, you should not draw conclusions about his unprofessionalism. SMM specialists have worked differently in the past, so try to explain yourself what you expect from an SMM specialist, discuss the details. Remember: quality negotiations do not guarantee quality work.

SMM tasks and KPIs

Conventionally, all the work of SMM can be divided into three blocks.

1. Content. Of course, the smmshchik is engaged in the preparation and publication of posts on social networks. Such work includes photo materials, videos and texts. Developing content, the specialist thinks through when, what and how to place. In addition, he is responsible for statistics.
2. Interaction with the audience. Users use media to communicate. Consequently, the number of sales increases in those who communicate with the audience. You need to establish communication in posts (e.g., post entertaining posts), and actively respond to comments and posts. Forget scripts like “Contact a consultant. In chat or in the comments, the audience needs to provide real, out-of-the-box communication.
3. Traffic. Traffic refers to potential customers who are your target audience. Without high traffic, there will never be sales because traffic and sales are interrelated.

To work with these three whales SMM specialists work in social networks, promote the brand, lead the client to the sale. KPIs are formed based on this information.

Examples of KPIs

1. 1. Subscribers: The most obvious item for a sms person. However, this is an ineffective indicator, because it can easily be tweaked or bought, although many specialists did exactly that at one time. A business owner is not interested in such an audience, because he does not need dead accounts that do not buy his product and do not show any activity. We do not recommend this indicator as the main criterion for analyzing an SMM specialist.
   2. The number of unsubscribes. Another common indicator that is often used to evaluate the work of the sms person. In principle, this is an acceptable KPI for analyzing a person’s work. with its help, you can understand that the content has ceased to please the audience or that something has happened to the company’s image. By the way, an SMM specialist also works on the image component.
   3. Coverage. Almost all social networks offer coverage of posts in their statistics. Coverage is a measure of the number of views on your page, your account. This analytics tool counts unique visits. Even if a user saw your post in the feed 30 times, the outreach will only show one interaction. Reaches are considered one of the main indicators of the SMM sphere, as they contribute to increasing direct sales. But this indicator is also easy to fake: you can publish 10-20 publications per day, and then the reach will surprise you.
   4. Views. This indicator reflects the effectiveness of the posts. Many media outlets have introduced this function. With its help, you can understand which content is of interest to the audience, which formats are popular and which are not. The main difference between views and coverage is that in this case, any number of views of the post is counted. For example, if your post had 40 views, and then it popped up to some user 40 times, you will see 80 views in the statistics.
   5. Traffic to third-party resources. A good specialist drives traffic to the site because he knows: this audience is already “warmed up. On the resource with the help of “Yandex Metrika” or another service, you can study the audience in detail. But there is another side to the coin: it happens that the cost of transition to the site is too high. However, this indicator is quite objective.
   6. Generating leads. This is the most sought-after KPI. To begin with, it is important to understand what counts as a lead. As a rule, it is an interaction with a customer, namely:
      • email;
      • ordering a free service;
      • view the specified page.
   7. CPC, CPS.
      • These metrics are also often used to evaluate KPIs. They count the cost of leads, not their quantity.
      • CPC is a measure of how much it costs to go to a third-party resource or subscriber. The lower the CPC, the better.
      • CPS – the value of the completed deal in the media.
   8. The growth of the active core. The active core are those users who most often interact with your brand. Simply put, they are fans. They often like, comment on, and repost your posts. In fact, it’s a metric that shows how interesting your content is. The logic is simple: the more interesting the content, the higher the active core rate. Unfortunately, media analytics currently doesn’t allow you to measure this metric on the site itself. You need to resort to third-party services. Mostly used Pepper.Ninja.
   9. Involvement. This indicator is suitable for evaluating useful content, such as infobusiness.
   10. Brand recognition cost. This indicator comes from PR. It is suitable for analytics for those brands that care about being talked about, written about, etc. This metric will help to evaluate the work of the smsman in the area of brand building.
   11. The amount of user-generated content. This indicator shows whether customers are writing about you and sharing their impressions. You need to enter the hashtag, and at the end of each month count how many times the publications using it have been written.
   12. ROI. This is the most effective metric for evaluating an SMM professional. It is a return on investment metric, but keep in mind that we are only talking about profit.
   13. Involvement rate. This is a qualitative KPI for assessing the effectiveness of working with the audience. It can be calculated as follows:

   (Subscription base volume/Involved subscribers) x 100

   This calculation demonstrates how many people are ready for the target action.

   (Number of engagements per day/Total number of subscribers)*100%

   This determines the activity of the audience for the day.

   (Number of engagements per publication/Total number of subscribers at the time of publication)*100

   This calculation shows the effectiveness of individual items.

   Remember: it is important not to be limited to the contract. You need to be guided by the goals and objectives set for the SMM specialist. An experienced SMM specialist will be able to tell you which KPIs you should follow.