26 Nov Social Media Metrics You Should Know: Post-Program Drop-Off
Analytics are a beautiful thing. They can tell you so much about a demographic, brand, program performance, and more. However, if you don’t know how to read the data correctly, analytics can trick you.
Have you ever looked at the social media metrics after a campaign and noticed an inexplicable drop in fans? Well, worry no more. This interesting phenomenon has a name. We have coined it Post-Program Drop-Off or PPDO and have identified why it occurs.
4 Reasons Behind Post-Program Drop-Off
There are four reasons for PPDO. Two that you should worry about and two that you shouldn’t:
Excessive Visibility
When you run paid media to complement a social media program, you increase a brand’s visibility to non-fans and current fans. Ads, promoted posts, and your organic content can combine to overexpose your brand.
Why You Should Worry: Sometimes fans can just get tired of seeing posts from your brand over and over again, causing them to click the “Unlike” or “Unfollow” buttons. Make sure that you don’t over-post during promotions.
Disinterested Fans
Most likely gained through paid media, these fans were lured to fandom with the promise of something new and shiny. Their initial excitement faded once they realized they weren’t actually interested in the brand.
Why You Should Worry: There’s nothing wrong with acquiring fans via promotions, but you shouldn’t need promotions to keep fans around. Having disinterested fans might be a sign that your regular content isn’t interesting, or worse, may be annoying.
Irrelevant Fans
Some people scour the Internet looking for contests and sweepstakes, hoping to win something… anything. Sometimes they don’t care what the prize is and they definitely don’t care what the brand is.
Why You Shouldn’t Worry: You didn’t want these fans in the first place.
Fake Fans
One of Facebook’s fake fan purges might coincide with the end of a campaign causing a sudden drop in fan count. It might sound improbable, but I’ve seen this first hand.
Why You Shouldn’t Worry: Sure they might boost your overall fan count (and your ego), but fake fans are completely useless. They can actually harm your page by lowering your engagement rate. So losing them is actually a good thing.
If Fans Are Just Going to Leave, Why Run a Program?
What’s the old saying? Can’t see the forest for the trees? When you’re looking at analytics, it’s important to not get lost in the minutia. The graphs at the top of this blog post and the one directly below are from the same social media program. The graph above shows a short period of time during the end of the program. Whereas the graph below shows fan growth during the entire program.
Social programs remain a fantastic way to increase net followers and engagement. So, don’t be discouraged by a sudden drop. It’s perfectly normal.
If you’re interested in learning about more types of metrics, be sure to read 6 Metrics All Social Media Marketers Should be Familiar With.
