What happens when you start without deciding on numbers
After you've run social media for a while, you start to hear things like "we got fewer likes than last month" or "followers aren't growing as much as we thought." But if you haven't decided which numbers should be how high, you can't tell whether a drop is even a problem. As a result, you get tossed around by whichever number catches your eye, and your approach changes every month.
You set goals and KPIs to clear up this uncertainty. If you decide in advance which numbers to watch, you can judge any rise or fall by whether it's good or bad for the business. It also lets you talk about results inside the company with the same yardstick.
KGI and KPI: what's the difference?
The business result you ultimately want to achieve is the KGI (key goal indicator), and the numbers you use along the way to check whether you're getting closer are KPIs (key performance indicators). The terms sound difficult, but the idea is simple.
For a hair salon, for example, the KGI is "number of new customer bookings." Social media can't directly increase bookings, so you make the things that happen before that your KPIs. If the flow is: a viewer sees a post, opens the profile, taps the link to the booking page, and books, then profile views and link clicks are candidates for KPIs.
The KGI is a business result, so it also moves because of things other than social media. Choose KPIs that you can directly move through your social media work. With this distinction, you can separate "did bookings drop because of social media, or for another reason?"
Numbers to watch by purpose
The candidates for KPIs change with the purpose you set in your official account strategy. Arranged by typical purpose, the numbers to watch look like this.
| Purpose | Main numbers to watch | Supporting numbers |
|---|---|---|
| Get known | Impressions and reach | How followers are growing |
| Get people interested | Saves, shares, replies, engagement rate | Profile views |
| Lead to visits and inquiries | Link clicks and CTR | Number of inquiries that came from social media |
| Lead to hiring | Clicks to the careers page | Number of applicants who said they saw social media |
| Relationships with existing customers | Number of replies and DMs, repeat customers' comments | Followers lost |
What matters here is narrowing the main numbers to one or two. If you chase every number in the table, you won't know which to improve. Supporting numbers are for looking into why a main number moved.
Likes are hard to make the star
A like takes little effort to give, so the count is easy to build up. For the same reason, the link to business results tends to be weak. On X's recommendation system, for example, a like carries only about 1/30 the weight of the reaction of copying a link to send to someone. The details are in what makes a post show up in X's recommendations. It's fine to watch likes as a rough indicator of reactions, but if you make something the star KPI, choosing a reaction that goes a step further, such as saves, shares, replies and clicks, connects better to your purpose.
Don't chase follower count alone
Follower count is an easy number to understand, but it is not itself a result. Even if a giveaway adds followers all at once, if they are all people with no interest in your products, reactions to your posts won't rise and the share of reactions will fall. Treat follower count as a supporting number for checking whether the people you want to reach are growing.
How to set target values
Once you've decided what to watch, set target values. Even if you pick a number from the start, like "10,000 impressions a month," without a basis, it means nothing whether you hit it. Setting target values in this order is realistic.
1. First measure where you are for one or two months
For an account that has just started, begin by finding out where you are now. Keep posting at the frequency you chose for one or two months, and record the monthly values of the numbers you're watching. If the account is already running, line up the past three months of numbers.
2. Aim slightly above where you are
Set the target slightly above where you are now. How far above depends on the business and the account's stage, and there's no single answer. What matters is that it's a value you can reach through your efforts. A target you can't reach only lowers the motivation of the person in charge.
3. Think in terms of per-post values
Look at the per-post value as well as the monthly total. If you post more, the total rises, but if the per-post value is falling, that is a sign the content is getting thinner. Looking at both the total and per post shows whether you're earning through quantity or improving quality.
4. Review every three months
Review target values every three months. Many industries have numbers that move with the season, so once you can compare with the same month last year, looking at year-over-year makes judging easier too.
Decide how you'll collect the numbers
A KPI must be something you can collect the same way every month. Decide where you'll get each number: the insights (analytics screens) of each network, your website's access analytics, or numbers you ask for in a shop or on a form.
Results that happen outside social media (inquiries or purchases on your site) can't be seen from social media insights alone. If you tag the links in your posts, your site's access analytics can count "which post they came from." This is explained in measuring results with UTM and short URLs.
In a shop, asking at the visit or booking "What did you see to come here?" is a plain but reliable method. If you count the answers each month, you have a rough measure of visits from social media.
Common mistakes
Changing the content for the sake of numbers
When raising numbers becomes the aim, posts drift toward topics unrelated to the business and clickbait that fishes for reactions. The numbers may rise for a while, but they don't resonate with the people you want to reach, and the KGI doesn't move. Settle on this: numbers are a tool for checking whether you're getting closer to your purpose, not the purpose itself.
Too many KPIs
If you line up 10 or 20 numbers in every report, what's good and what's bad gets blurred. With one or two main numbers and at most two or three supporting ones, the monthly review can finish in 30 minutes.
No place to review
Even if you set KPIs, if the day to look at them isn't fixed, you stop looking. Decide the review day first, such as the 1st of each month. How to put it together is covered in how to make a monthly report.
Tracking KPIs with SNS TOWN
In Analytics, SNS TOWN shows the movement of followers on connected accounts and the daily movement of reactions to posts over 1 week, 3 months, 6 months or 1 year. The previous period is overlaid as a dashed line, so you can use it for the "measure where you are" stage before you set target values. The numbers are re-read from each network once a day, and as of October 2026, reactions can be read for X, Instagram, Facebook Pages and YouTube.
Per-post numbers are also listed and can be exported as CSV, so you can use them directly for monthly materials. If link clicks are your KPI, replace the URL in the body with a short URL on the post screen, and you can count the clicks per post. Check pricing for the plans that include Analytics.
Frequently asked questions
How many KPIs should I set?
A good guide is one or two main numbers and two or three supporting ones. Beyond that, you can't keep up with them in the monthly review.
I've just started and have no basis for a target value
Make the first one or two months a period for measuring where you are, without setting target values. During that time, make keeping up your chosen posting frequency the goal, and you build a foundation for running the account.
Can't I use follower count as a KPI?
You can, but if you make it the star, it tends to drift toward collecting people with no interest. We recommend using it as a supporting number to check whether the people you want to reach are growing.
Should KPIs differ by network?
Each network has reactions it's good at, so it's natural to change the main numbers. For example, choose saves on image-centered networks and replies or shares on text-centered ones. Keep the KGI the same across all.
Which numbers should I show my boss to explain results?
Show the numbers closest to the KGI first (inquiries, visits and applications that came from social media), and add the KPI movement as the reason. A report that only lines up like counts makes the link to results hard to see.
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