More doesn't necessarily mean better. Think emails in your inbox, glitter on a Mother's Day card, hot sauce… That applies to social media metrics, too.

It's tempting to track everything your analytics dashboard throws at you. But not all social media metrics are created equal, and the ones worth your time come down to your specific social media marketing goals — whether that's testing a new format, growing an audience, or getting more people to your website.

Metrics are most helpful when they guide your next move — adjusting your content, switching up your posting schedule, or even thinking up new products. In this guide, I'll walk you through 20 social media marketing metrics, what each one tells you, how to calculate it, and how to turn the right handful into KPIs.

Social media metrics are the numbers you use to see how your content is performing against your social media goals.

Any time you check how many people liked a post, clicked a link, or followed your account, you're working with social media metrics. Each one tells its own story about your content's reach and impact.

You may hear people refer to metrics as "social media KPIs," or key performance indicators. They sound similar, but they aren't exactly the same.

A metric becomes a KPI when you tie it to a goal and a number. A few examples:

You can track dozens of metrics, but you need only three to five KPIs to understand whether you’re close to or far from achieving your goals.

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