By Lynn Corbitt, Account Executive

As marketers, it’s important to look at the data on our social media posts, website visits, media hits, and any other platforms or tactics you might be using. It’s easy to look at these individually, but we have to remember that it’s even more important to zoom out and look at the big picture of what the data is telling us overall – and how we’re measuring up to our goals. Chances are your goal for posting on social media isn’t just to have hundreds or thousands of people see your post and then move on with their lives. Your goal is likely for them to click a link, sign up for something or even make a purchase. Remember your goal when you’re looking at your numbers.

I fell into this trap just a few weeks ago. I saw that a social media post we had published for a client hadn’t performed as well as I had hoped in terms of reach. Actually, it didn’t perform that well at all, so I started trying to brainstorm what went wrong and how we can increase our reach next time. Then, I saw that our email signups for that client had increased quite a bit in the past day or so – ever since that social media post had gone live. While we couldn’t confirm that all (or most) of those new subscribers came from social media, that post was the only trigger we could think of that could have inspired this jump in subscribers.

Now, could it have been coincidence? Yes, but probably not. Even if only a handful of those email subscribers came from social media, that’s still a success. It can be easy to get caught up in the smaller, day-to-day numbers like reach and followers. You certainly want to pay attention to them, because if your reach drops out of nowhere or you suddenly lose half of your followers, you can use that information to reevaluate what you’ve been posting and see what could have caused this drop. However, reach and followers are not the end-all, be-all. A follower count doesn’t pay the bills, after all!

At the end of the day, data is a key part of any marketing strategy. Data shows us what’s working and what isn’t. When you’re looking at your data, look at all of your data. Watch the big picture so you can see how you’re progressing toward your goals, rather than getting caught up in a slightly lower reach than you’re expecting.