Counts of real people, not impressions
Did it actually bring anyone in?
One number matters: how many people got in touch. Here is how that gets counted, what it costs each time, and the honest bit — the ones it will never be able to see.
Have a look at what you get after
Made-up practice · sample numbers
Your first month
1 – 30 September
- 5people got in touch
- 12posts went out
- 9replies you sent
Nothing worth comparing yet
One month is a number, not a trend. A quiet August and a busy September can look like progress when they are just August and September.
You get counts now, a comparison from month three, and something worth acting on from month six. There will be no chart here until there is something in it.
What each one cost you
£19.00
£95 spread across 5 people
Pictures and posting are in that. Your time is not — call it ten minutes a week and price it however you price your own hour.
Which post did best?
Too early to say. One good week does not make a good post — ask again when a subject has run three or four times.
Three months in
July – September
- 37people got in touch
- 38posts went out
- 31replies you sent
Up from 20 in the three months before
That is a direction, not a season. Three months tells you whether this is working at all; it cannot yet tell you that September is always busier than August.
What each one cost you
£7.70
£285 spread across 37 people
Pictures and posting are in that. Your time is not — call it ten minutes a week and price it however you price your own hour.
Which post did best?
One subject is pulling ahead — first-visit nerves. It has run four times and brought people in every time.
“Nervous about the dentist? Here is exactly what happens at a first appointment.”
5 people got in touch after this one
Six months in
April – September
- 57people got in touch
- 76posts went out
- 48replies you sent
16 people this month, against 5 in April
Six months is enough to see a shape: a dip in August when you were shut for a fortnight, and the best month after Saturdays went on sale. Worth acting on.
| Apr | 5 |
|---|---|
| May | 8 |
| Jun | 7 |
| Jul | 12 |
| Aug | 9 |
| Sep | 16 |
What each one cost you
£5.94
£570 spread across 57 people
Pictures and posting are in that. Your time is not — call it ten minutes a week and price it however you price your own hour.
Which post did best?
First-visit nerves, by a distance. It has been rewritten twice and still brings people in.
“Nervous about the dentist? Here is exactly what happens at a first appointment.”
5 people got in touch after this one
How a person gets tied to a post
Three ways, and all of them are things that actually happened.
- They replied to it. A comment or a message on the post itself, or on your page within a day of seeing it.
- They followed the link. Links in your posts carry a tag, so a booking or a contact form that came from one is counted to it.
- They said so. You mark an enquiry as “saw the Saturday post” when someone tells you, and it goes on the count.
What it will never see
This is the part most tools leave out, so read it before you judge the number.
- The person who saw a post, said nothing, and walked in three weeks later.
- The one who searched your name afterwards and rang the number on Google.
- The friend they told, who never saw a post at all.
- Anyone who messaged an account you have not connected.
So the count is a floor, never a ceiling. What you see is the least it did, and there is no honest way to measure the rest.