What are post performance benchmarks?
How can you say if a social media post on your account is performing well or poorly? With social media feed algorithms constantly changing, and your account constantly growing, this can be a difficult question to answer. Benchmarks are our solution.
Normal Range
First, we calculate a Normal Range for each post and most of its metrics, such as impressions or various types of engagement. You can see a normal range as the orange area on any graph where a benchmark is available.
The Normal Range is determined by looking at your recent posts and calculating median performance values for each metric we support. This is represented by the orange line.
The upper and lower boundaries of the normal range are a simple plus or minus 20% of the median.
Normal Ranges are recalculated every week, and are different for every social account and post type. So don't panic if your benchmarks change over time.
Normal Ranges are available for the first 90 days of a post's life from the date it is published.
Doing Great, About Average, Could Do Better
Second, we categorize performance for all of a post's metrics into the following buckets:
Doing Great: Metric is greater than 20% above the median, as of the most recent available data point. Such posts and metrics are highlighted in green.
About Average: Metric is within plus or minus 20% of the median, as of the most recent available data point. Such posts and metrics are not highlighted.
Could Do Better: Metric is less than 20% below the median as of the most recent available data point. Such posts and metrics are highlighted in red.
Benchmarks on the Posts page
When viewing the Posts page, a given Group, a post's performance is highlighted with a green outline if Doing Great and a red outline if Could Do Better.
From this view, we base the benchmark on the most recently available day of data with a benchmark. If the post is younger than 90 days and has a benchmark available, we use the most recent day of data. If the post is older than 90 days and has a benchmark available, we use day 90.
From the post list, we base these benchmarks off the platform's core metrics. For Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, use Impressions. For YouTube, we use video views.
In the example below, you can see posts that are Doing Great.
You can filter from the Posts page or in a given Group by post performance by using the dropdown at the top of the screen.
Benchmarks in the Post detail page
If you click into a given post, you can see details on each metric's performance (if available). If a metric is above or below the normal range, it will be highlighted in green or red, and show a multiple of how far above or below that range it is performing.
Finally, you can see the normal range as the orange area for a given metric by clicking into it. The metric's actual performance is shown as the colored line.
Troubleshooting
Why can't I see performance benchmarks on my post?
We need a minimum of 10 posts of a given post type on an account to calculate performance benchmarks. Keep posting and you'll see performance benchmarks soon!
We may not have enough days of data across your posts to calculate performance benchmarks, either because you recently linked your accounts or your posts or account are quite new. Keep posting and you'll see performance benchmarks soon!
Why does the normal range stop after 90 days?
Normal Ranges are available for the first 90 days of a post's life from the date it is published.
Benchmarks are really intended to help you understand initial performance, and then take some action. That could be editing something about the post, or changing your strategy for future content by doubling down on what's working or cutting what isn't.
We've found folks don't really have strong need for benchmarking beyond the 90 day point for these purposes.
We observe most posts have the majority of their activity in the first 90 days, and any actionable modifications to them, such as thumbnail or metadata edits, are largely ineffective after that point.
Creators and Publishers have taken any content or audience takeaways and applied them to creating new content by that point.