The love of vanity metrics

Impressions. Likes. Mentions. Shares.

They are words marketers like to use to show how well their social media campaigns are doing. But what do they really mean? I like to equate these metrics from the social world to the real world like this…

Impression = When you walk by a store front and take a glance at the product in the window display

Like = When you walk by a store front, take a glance at the product in the window display, turn to your friend, point and say “Cool!”

Mention = When you walk by a store front, take a glance at the product in the window display, stop and tell your friend “Let’s go in and take a look”

Share = When you meet another friend later on and tell that friend “Have you checked out that product in the shop? You should go check it out!”

While all four metrics can be used to measure performance, they are not created equal. The first two are what are usually referred to as vanity metrics. And oh boy, are they popular with marketers in Malaysia. Vanity metrics are the simplest way to measure the performance of social media content and campaigns and are liked by many because they are easy to obtain in large numbers.

The question is: Are you using social media metrics to pad your stats, or diving deeper to understand whether your activities on social media are actually connecting with your audience?