The Easiest Metric to Identify Your Viral Content – Social Media Metrics That Matter

in Social Media

In the third installment of our four social media metrics that matter series, we are going to cover applause rates. An Applause rate is measured by simply taking into account the number of likes, favorites, +1, etc. per post. At this point, it would seem Avinash Kaushik’s master plan in providing big brands and businesses with these often overlooked social media metrics is to force them to know their audience.

This may seem pretty obvious to anyone that has been using social media. Everyone wants more likes or favorites. It is a fairly simple measurement and it is readily available on each social site. So the end right? Not so fast. Let’s just make sure we are all on the same pages as to what applause rate can help you with.

This metric actually gives you some very useful data. It lets you know what your audience likes and does not like. It works in a way that a comedian tries out new material. You throw out a new bit, if it gets a good laugh, you add it to your routine. If it falls flat, it’s back to drawing board. In fact, a lot of comedians use social media as a way to test some of their jokes. So think of it as a quality assurance test for your content.

Applause Rate 03 — 335 Favorites = Quality

Applause Rate 04 — 49 Favorites = Re-evaluate

High applause rate tends to act as an endorsement too. People are inclined to look at likes and favorites from their network as a proclamation of quality. A Facebook or Youtube “like” can give relevance to your brand or business. It’s almost as good as a word of mouth. Which, by the way, according to this amazing article on Forbes, is an incredible driving force for a huge base of consumers. Nielsen reported 92% of consumers believe recommendations from family and friends over all forms of advertising. This is literally the best advertising you can’t buy.

Now we are surely on the same page in realizing that applause rate is more than just a warm, fuzzy feeling about a piece of content. It can actually be used and evaluated to help you know the future content your audience craves. Our last social media metric will be economic value, so check us out next week same day, same time.

And don’t forget to check out our resources page where we have a free downloadable Google Sheet that will help you track and measure your social media pages while letting you check out your competitions pages. Drop us a line below and tell us what social media metric you have found most or even least helpful.