For years, marketers have chased bigger numbers: more followers, more impressions, more views, more engagement. Those metrics were easy to report and easy to celebrate.

Today, they're much harder to defend.

Stop measuring attention. Start measuring outcomes.

Impressions, likes, and follower growth still have value. They help diagnose performance and understand whether content is reaching an audience.

But on their own, they rarely answer the questions executives care about.

• Did we build trust?
• Did we influence consideration?
• Did we create loyal customers?
• Did we grow our community?
• Did we drive meaningful business results?

The best social teams have shifted from reporting activity to reporting impact.

Five metrics every marketing leader should be tracking

1. Share Rate

People share content that reflects their identity, teaches them something useful, or starts a conversation.

A share is an endorsement. It tells you your audience believes the content is worth putting in front of their own network.

While likes often signal passive approval, shares signal genuine value.

Ask yourself:

• Which topics consistently earn shares?
• What formats encourage people to recommend our content?
• Are we creating ideas worth passing along?

Walmart: #UnwrapTheDeals (TikTok) - Winner in Filter/Lens category, 13th Annual Shorty Awards

Walmart created an interactive shoppable AR filter on TikTok that allowed users to "unwrap" Black Friday deals on their screen. The filter was inherently gamified, prompting users to record their reactions and share their personalized results. The campaign achieved a massive organic share rate, yielding over 5.5 billion views and an immense wave of user-generated content.

Paramount Pictures: SMILE (Viral Marketing) - Winner in Brand Awareness Campaign, Entertainment, and more, 15th Annual Shorty Awards

To promote the horror film Smile, Paramount placed actors in the crowds of live, nationally televised MLB baseball games. The actors sat perfectly still behind home plate staring directly into the cameras with terrifying, unblinking smiles. Because the stunt was hidden in plain sight during live broadcasts, it triggered an astronomical organic share rate. Viewers captured clips of their TVs, posted them to TikTok, X (Twitter), and Reddit, creating a self-sustaining viral loop entirely driven by audience shares.

2. Saves

Not every successful piece of content is consumed immediately.

When someone saves a post, they're signaling future intent. They expect the information to be useful later.

Educational content, frameworks, checklists, industry insights, and research tend to generate higher save rates than trend-driven posts.

Michelob ULTRA: Save It, See It - Winner in Instagram Partnership, 14th Annual Shorty Awards

To fight the extreme disparity in television coverage between men's and women's sports, Michelob ULTRA launched a real-world initiative that turned the Instagram "Save" button into a literal consumer voting tool. They ran posts featuring women's sports highlights and schedules, prompting users to click "Save." Every save hit the algorithm to boost the content's visibility, while Michelob ULTRA physically dedicated $100 million to increase women's sports visibility. The launch film became the most saved post in the brand's history, netting an astronomical 12,423% increase in saves across all brand channels.

3. Community Quality

Follower count tells you how many people clicked "Follow."

Community quality tells you whether those people actually care.

Instead of asking, “How fast are we growing?”, ask:

• Are conversations becoming more thoughtful?
• Are the same people returning?
• Are customers answering questions for one another?
• Are industry leaders joining the discussion?

Song for Charlie's "Community-Led Fentanyl Prevention in California" - Audience Honor in Local Campaign, 18th Shorty Awards.

Rather than relying on broad public service announcements, the campaign partnered with trusted local creators to spark conversations within their own communities. Inspiring comments about families, friends, and educators having real conversations about fentanyl prevention, it showed that strong communities are built on trust, not just reach.

4. Qualified Engagement

Not all engagement carries the same weight.

One thoughtful comment from a prospective customer can be more valuable than hundreds of generic reactions.

Look beyond total engagement and evaluate:

• Comment quality
• Conversation depth
• Profile visits
• Website clicks from high-intent audiences
• Newsletter signups
• Demo requests
• Resource downloads

FEMAIL (Verizon) - Winner in Email & Newsletter, 17th Annual Shorty Awards.

During Women’s History Month, Verizon hijacked the emails of their own employees with a purpose driven signature: custom illustrations highlighting underrecognized women in the world of science, technology and civil rights. Each email signature highlighted a figure from history using her own words to inspire and empower both sender and receiver. A small change, a simple email signature, signaled to women everywhere that apologizing less, and leaning into the power of your own voice was not just ok, but welcomed.

5. Business Influence

The strongest social teams connect platform performance to business performance.

That doesn't mean every post needs to generate immediate revenue.

It means understanding social's contribution across the customer journey.

Examples include:

• Assisted conversions
• Brand search growth
• Direct traffic
• Lead quality
• Customer retention
• Event registrations
• Pipeline influence
• Recruitment
• Earned media opportunities

Meet the Small Businesses Making a Massive Impact by Chase - Winner in Diverse-Owned Businesses Campaign, 10th Annual Shorty Impact Awards

Via the #ChaseSmallBiz series, Chase leveraged its institutional business influence to spotlight underrepresented entrepreneurs across the country, spanning a variety of industries and cities. The series helped directly scale the commercial opportunities, capital access, and consumer foot traffic for the featured businesses.

The future belongs to meaningful metrics

The platforms will keep changing.

Algorithms will continue to evolve.

AI will keep transforming how content is produced and discovered.

The brands that succeed won't be the ones chasing every new metric. They'll be the ones consistently measuring the behaviors that signal trust, influence, and long-term growth.

Stay ahead of what's next

The digital landscape never stands still. Neither should your strategy.

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