Industry-Specific Social Media Metrics for 2022

If you don’t include industry-specific social media standards in your performance data, it’s like staging a play without a set. Even if others understand what you’re saying, they’ll likely draw their own conclusions about the larger picture.

Using social media benchmarks by industry, you may learn more about your approach, its obstacles, and its triumphs. With the use of social metrics, we were able to show how each industry fared on social media last year.

Make use of the Sprout’s 2022 Year in Social research to discover new opportunities and fine-tune your strategy in a way that resonates with your target market. Keep reading to learn more about the metrics, their importance, and how you can use them to make 2022 your finest year yet.

What to track in 2022: Industry-specific benchmarks on social media

Impressions, posts published, new followers and engagements are the subject of our Year In Social report. Because they are network-independent, you can use them to gauge the success of your entire social media campaign.

Impressions

To get a handle on impressions, you need to know how far you can go. Impressions are the measure to keep an eye on, as these two metrics are often used interchangeably.

The overall number of people who view your material is known as reach. It is possible for a single person to experience numerous impressions on the same piece of content at the same time.

Repeated exposure is a game-changer in terms of raising consumer awareness of a company’s brand. As your material is viewed more frequently, your brand becomes more recognised to your target audience. As a result of this familiarity, you’ll see a rise in the number of comments, DMs, and even purchases as a result.

In the spotlight: software for computers.

B2B social media strategy has always been a difficult nut to crack, but computer software manufacturers stepped up their game significantly last year. As of 2021, the industry was experiencing 1.8 million views per day.

The strategy appears to be based on utilising the industry’s unique assets. Purchases of software necessitate a lengthy, multi-step process. It makes it difficult to leverage social media as a sales tool at the bottom of the funnel. That’s why well-known brands are refocusing their efforts on raising public awareness of their products.

In order to assist its fans in achieving their professional development objectives, companies like Drift use social media to share free insights from industry professionals. Proactively engaging with target audiences before they’re ready to buy establishes trust before they’re ready to buy.

The posts that have been made public.

It’s simple to measure the number of posts you’ve written. During a given time period, it counts the total number of posts made across all accounts. A great social media strategy frequently begins with this one basic step.

Reverse engineering the amount of posts you need to publish in order to achieve a given number of impressions, engagements, and engagement rates can be done by focusing on the posts you’ve already published. If your social media objectives are based on data, then examining your previous performance reports is all it takes to figure out how to achieve them.

This does not imply, however, that quantity should be sacrificed for quality. It’s an issue of setting priorities. As a one-person social media team, focus your efforts on the networks that are most important for your entire marketing strategy.

In the spotlight: professional sports

Sports franchises are outperforming the rest of the publishing industry when it comes to volume.

Professional sports clubs sent out an average of 3.1K posts on social media last year. For context, that’s more than double the social media benchmark for all industries.

Even yet, this industry has a distinct advantage over the rest. Repurposing a single game’s footage can yield numerous blog pieces. For example, the Atlanta Hawks’ game against the Portland Trailblazers spawned over ten Instagram posts.

No matter how big your squad is, you can still use this method. Look at upcoming events for your business with a social-first perspective in order to maximise your return on investment.

There are a lot of new people following me.

More than eighty percent of customers will choose a brand they follow on social media over a competition, according to the latest Sprout Social IndexTM. Increasing your number of followers has the potential to directly impact your business, especially as social shopping continues to gain traction.

Retail is the focus of this week’s industry spotlight.

When it comes to attracting new customers, retail brands are head and shoulders above the others. It is estimated that in the year 2021, the industry gained an additional 4.8K people on average.

For audience expansion, multimedia content has never been more crucial in the current social scene. For social media marketers, this poses both a challenge and an opportunity. Videos can be recycled in a variety of ways, but the process of creating and editing them is time-consuming.

The key is not to overthink it. Follow Cocokind’s example and produce informal, product-focused videos that encourage customers to think creatively about how to use your products.

The sum total of all interactions

The number of times a user interacts with your posts is counted as total engagements. Cross-network measurement. Everything from retweeting to liking to commenting is included in this service.

You need social media engagement standards to figure out which content is most popular with your target demographic. If you can figure out what makes people want to engage with your content, you’ll be able to replicate your success.

All of this helps to a better knowledge of what constitutes a good social media post from the perspective of the viewer. With this information at your fingertips, you’ll be able to craft a more focused plan for each article. In addition, you can use it to gently reject any demands to “just post this.”

Higher education is the focus of this week’s industry spotlight.

A total of 190.9K total engagements were recorded in the higher education business last year. That’s more than seventy thousand dollars over the average for all industries.

The curriculum mix that higher education institutions must manage is complex. It’s nearly impossible to find an even distribution of content connected to the university, its alumni, sports, and specific colleges. Because of this, a segmented strategy has become increasingly popular.

There are a lot of Twitter identities for certain Purdue interests if you search for “Purdue” on Twitter. When the burden of being everything to everyone is removed, they can focus on their target audience.

Benchmarking the advantages of social media involvement

Benchmarks can turn data from last year into an advantage for this year. The most effective way to adjust your plan to your audience’s requirements and business objectives is to use social data. When it comes to using social media engagement benchmarks to improve your strategy, here are three ideas:

For inspiration, industry benchmarks can be found.

Every sector has a distinct social media strategy. Looking beyond your competition can be the first step to your next game-changing campaign if you want to update your social media approach.

Find out which brands are leading the pack in terms of the parameters stated above by consulting industry benchmarks. Analyze their social media profiles to find out what they’re doing differently and how your company may follow their lead in this area. Using this method, you’ll be able to come up with fresh ideas that will appeal to your audience.

Competitor benchmarks provide context for your performance.

You can create a better story with your performance data if you know how your brand compares to your competition. Benchmarking against your competitors might help you better communicate your efforts to company stakeholders who may not be familiar with the characteristics of a successful social media campaign.

If you want to see how well you stack up against your main competitors, you can use Sprout’s network-specific competitor reports. In order to compare the data that matter, these reports provide information on publishing behaviour, fan growth, and engagement.

Your short-term objectives are informed by your personal benchmarks.

You should use your personal social media engagement criteria to create actionable goals. Your brand’s own year-over-year benchmarks reflect the tale of your growth through time, while industry benchmarks offer your performance flavour.

Brands who are testing out new social media tactics or establishing a new network presence will find this particularly relevant. An early approach can’t be judged against one that has been around long enough to prove itself and produce results.

You may learn a lot about your growth rate by comparing your month-to-month or year-to-year performance.

Annual Social: Sprout’s 2022 Social Media Industry Benchmarking Report

Knowing where to begin with benchmarks for your industry, competitors, and yourself is the first step toward maximising your chances of success.

See how your brand ranks compared to your sector and social media as a whole in Sprout’s Year in Social report. And in 2022, additional social media success will be possible.