Why benchmarking social media is important for public sector comms teams

Ever found yourself staring at a social media report, and starting to wonder, “Is this… good?” You’ve got 500 impressions on a LinkedIn post, but what does that actually mean? Is it a reason to let the team know that by your standards you’ve gone viral, or a sign that you need to rethink your strategy?

For public sector organisations, this question isn’t just about vanity metrics; it’s about trust, accountability, and ultimately, delivering better services to the communities you serve. In a world where every single post can shape public perception, understanding the true impact of your social media efforts is no longer a luxury,  it’s a necessity. And that is where benchmarking comes in.

Benchmarking is simply comparing performance against something else – an industry standard, a competitor, or even your own content, posts or campaigns. It’s the all important context that turns numbers into actionable insights. 

Without it, you’re essentially throwing darts in the dark, hoping to hit a bullseye without ever knowing where the target is.

When we talk about benchmarking social media, most people immediately think of the usual suspects, and rightly so! These are your bread-and-butter metrics that give you a snapshot of reach and initial engagement:

• Impressions: How many times your content was displayed.
• Reach: The number of unique people who saw your content.
• Engagement rate: The percentage of people who interacted with your content (likes, comments, shares).
• Video Views: How many times your videos were watched.
• Link clicks: How many people clicked through to your website from your social posts.

These are all incredibly valuable. But to truly understand your performance and where you sit in terms of public opinion, we need to go deeper. We need to look at metrics that speak to the quality of engagement and what your communities actually think about it. 

• Sentiment analysis: Are people reacting positively, negatively, or neutrally to your content and your organisation online? This can be incredibly insightful, especially after a major announcement or campaign, or during a crisis.
• Trust scores: Consistent positive sentiment and engagement can contribute to overall public trust. Are your social channels fostering a sense of reliability and transparency?
• Emotion analysis: How much “confusion” are you seeing off the back of that update about new bin collection times? 

By looking at these more nuanced indicators, you move beyond just “how many people saw it?” to “how did they feel about it?” and “what impact did it actually have?” This view is what empowers you to make genuinely informed decisions.

Now that we know what to benchmark, how can we do it effectively? 

The golden rule here is: compare like for like as much as possible. The more similar your comparison points, the more accurate and insightful your findings will be. We can break this down into several levels:

Level 1: Compare yourselves to similar organisations

Imagine you’re a local council. How do your overall impressions stack up against other local government organisations in your region or of a similar size? Or, how do your Housing Association video views compare to another Housing Associations? This is your first and most fundamental level of benchmarking.

Why it’s important: This gives you a crucial understanding of sector standards. Are your engagement rates typical for public sector bodies on Instagram, or are you significantly outperforming (or underperforming) your peers? It helps you set realistic goals and identify opportunities to learn from others who are excelling. If the NHS is getting phenomenal engagement on a social post about Harry Styles and cervical screenings, what can your local health board learn from their approach?

Level 2: Comparing your own channels against each other

This level involves an internal audit. What’s the average number of video views your Instagram typically gets? How do your X clicks compare to your Facebook clicks for similar types of content?  You should try to compare Facebook video views against other Facebook video views, rather than TikTok views, for example.

Why it’s important: This helps you understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of your platforms. You might discover that Instagram is fantastic for visual storytelling and video engagement, while LinkedIn is brilliant for driving traffic to specific webpages. By knowing your channel averages, you can quickly spot when a particular post or video is a standout success or a surprising miss, giving you immediate feedback on what resonates with your audience on each platform.

Level 3: Campaign-level benchmarking

This is where things get really interesting for all the data geeks out there. Let’s say you’re running a Safer Roads campaign. To accurately assess its performance, you need to compare it to another Safer Roads campaign, or something very similar.

Why it’s important: Context is king here. An exciting announcement about a major event (like Harry Styles playing at Wembley, with advice on taking the tube) will naturally generate far more buzz than a serious message about driving safely because it’s dark outside. If your Harry Styles post gets 100k video views and your Safer Roads video gets 1,000, it might look like the latter performed poorly. However, if your usual Safer Roads video only get around 500 views, then 1,000 is actually a fantastic result! This level of benchmarking prevents misleading comparisons and celebrates genuine success when it happens.

Level 4: Message- level benchmarking

This is the deepest dive and offers the most specific insights. Within your Safer Roads campaign,for example, you might have different messages: one focusing on anti-drink/drug driving, another on speeding, and a third on darker nights. For true accuracy, you’d want to compare your anti-drink/drug driving messages specifically against other anti-drink/drug driving messages.

Why it’s important: Different messages, even within the same overarching campaign, can resonate differently with your audience. By isolating specific messages and comparing their performance, you can pinpoint which narratives, calls to action, or visual styles are most effective for particular issues. This precision allows you to continually refine your messaging and maximise impact.

Benchmarking is super useful, but let’s be honest, collecting and interpreting all this data manually can be incredibly challenging and time-consuming. This is where Orlo’s Benchmarking tool can change everything.

With the Benchmarking tool, you’ll be able to effortlessly keep an eye on your industry peers, giving you the chance to take inspiration from their channels and understand exactly what works, and what misses the mark. And even better, you can then put these insights to good use and create a more informed strategy.

Knowledge is power. Instead of guessing what might be effective, we can help you create custom reports that are easy to digest, view, and share with your wider team. 

So, stop guessing and start knowing. Embrace benchmarking, and transform your social media from a series of hopeful posts into a strategy that’s built for public engagement and trust. You might just find that those 500 LinkedIn impressions are, in fact, a cause for celebration!