Which metric is commonly used to gauge social media success?

The engagement rate is a critical metric for assessing social media success because it provides insight into how well content resonates with an audience. This metric typically includes interactions such as likes, shares, comments, and overall audience participation. A high engagement rate indicates that users are actively interacting with the content, which suggests that the brand is successfully forging a connection with its audience. In the context of social media, it's not just about how many people see a post, but about how many people are motivated to interact with it, which is what engagement measures.

Other metrics, while important in their own contexts, do not directly reflect the specific objectives and outcomes of social media campaigns. The number of products sold pertains more to sales performance, the number of emails sent relates to email marketing effectiveness, and website traffic measures the flow of visitors to a site, which, while connected to social media, does not capture the direct interactions and engagement on social platforms themselves.