First and foremost, social media is a fantastic tool for boosting brand awareness. Just like your radio show, TV commercials, print ads, and billboards, social media allows you to put your practice in front of more people – many more, as digital marketing isn’t limited in scope and scale like other channels may be.

Social media is a great way to promote events and new content, like blog posts, podcast episodes, or TV and radio segments. You can also use social media to connect with clients in new ways by sharing office photos and posts about your business culture.

Then there’s the obvious benefit of connecting with and attracting new leads. Perhaps one of your clients shares one of your posts, thereby exposing all of their friends and followers to YOUR content and YOUR practice. Maybe it’ll catch the eye of your next qualified prospect!

Social media is a powerful marketing tool for small businesses, and financial advisors are no exception. But when it comes to analyzing performance data, social media metrics leave many users feeling stumped. Which metrics matter? What is “reach”? “Impressions”? And what the heck are vanity metrics?

A vanity metric is a surface-level social media metric like number of followers, “likes” on a post, and reach. They’re often considered “flashy,” and while they may look good on paper, they aren’t always the most informative in terms of how your social strategy is performing overall.

That being said, vanity metrics can actually be very useful, especially when your social media goals are things like brand awareness and increased reach.

Vanity metrics are usually the most easy to find; analytics tools like SproutSocial and Hootsuite – and even native tools like Facebook Page Insights – often present them automatically. Now let’s talk about some of the most common vanity metrics: impressions and engagement.

“Impressions” are a measure of how many times your post was seen. There is a difference between views and unique views, but usually both are counted when it comes to impressions. Let’s say in one scenario, your post is viewed by Person A two times and by Person B three times. That gives you a total of five impressions. In another scenario, your post is viewed one time only by five different people – that still gives you five impressions. This is all to say that impressions are not a count of how many individuals saw your content.

While impressions reflect the number of times your content was shown to users, engagement indicates how many people interacted with your post – it’s a count of likes, shares, and comments.

Higher engagement often means that your posts get a farther reach – they are displayed to and accessible by a larger group of people. This is a great way to boost brand awareness outside of your existing network. When a user interacts with your post or page, their network of friends and followers is also exposed to your content…without you lifting a finger!

Impressions and engagement are two of the biggest social media metrics, but they aren’t necessarily the most important. While they can help you determine the effect of your content on a surface level, you’ll need to dig a little deeper to gain valuable insight on things like ROI and conversions.