Do social media followers matter? We often meet with potential clients whose goal with social media is to grow their social media following. More followers can give you an idea that your content is resonating and reaching new audiences. While more followers can provide credibility to your brand, it doesn’t shed much light on whether your overall social media strategy is working to reach your goals.

To get a better understanding of your overall success, we recommend looking at these four other metrics:

Link Clicks & Swipe Ups: Tells how many people are engaging with your posts and taking action towards your desired conversion. This helps indicate you crafted a strong message and created a call to action.

Saves and Shares: Someone saving your posts strongly indicates that your content has resonated with them and that they found it valuable enough to save it for later. When someone shares a post, it suggests you’ve connected with them on a deeper level and have related to them on a personal level.

Contact & DMs: Tells the number of people who took action to get in touch or learn more based on your content. DMs are an important aspect of social media because it’s an easy way to interact with your customers one-on-one and provide additional opportunities to engage them.

User-Generated Content: UGC allows brands to showcase real experiences from real customers, which can have a significant impact on your future buyers. Have you ever bought a product or service simply because someone recommended it? We tend to trust and follow the opinions of others, especially those who are similar to us. User-generated content ultimately builds trust and authenticity.