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Social Shares

Definition

Social Shares measures the total number of times your content, product pages, or brand assets are shared across social media platforms. It helps quantify reach, resonance, and advocacy behavior.

Description

Social Shares is a key indicator of content resonance, emotional response, and organic reach, reflecting how often your message is compelling enough to be shared with others.

The relevance and interpretation of this metric shift depending on the model or product:

  • In B2B, it highlights how often thought leadership or events are reposted within industry networks
  • In PLG, it reflects users sharing product templates, dashboards, or team invites
  • In consumer or creator-led products, it surfaces referrals, giveaways, or community-driven content shares

A rising share volume signals virality and message amplification, while low or declining shares may point to uninspired creative or weak CTAs. By segmenting by platform, persona, or content type, you can optimize share triggers, creative formats, and social hooks.

Social Shares informs:

  • Strategic decisions, like campaign theming or channel prioritization
  • Tactical actions, such as CTA optimization or post timing
  • Operational improvements, including UGC program expansion or content seeding
  • Cross-functional alignment, connecting brand, content, and growth around community-driven awareness

Key Drivers

These are the main factors that directly impact the metric. Understanding these lets you know what levers you can pull to improve the outcome

  • Content Emotion and Utility: People share what surprises, helps, or makes them look good.
  • Share Mechanics and Prompts: Easy-to-share formats (carousels, templates, quote cards) increase likelihood.
  • Social Proof and Authority: Thought leadership from credible sources travels further.

Improvement Tactics & Quick Wins

Actionable ideas to optimize this KPI, from fast, low-effort wins to strategic initiatives that drive measurable impact.

  • If shares are weak, repackage blog insights into snackable social-first assets (slides, videos, charts).
  • Add share prompts in newsletters, product, and blog — not just at the end.
  • Run a test with “tag a peer” or challenge-style CTA campaigns.
  • Refine tone to be bolder or more opinionated — safe content doesn’t get shared.
  • Partner with community or customer marketing to source UGC from power users.

  • Required Datapoints to calculate the metric

    • Total Share Events (by platform)
    • Content shared (optional for deeper insights)
    • User or account info (optional, for segmentation)
    • Timeframe

  • Example to show how the metric is derived

    4,800 shares on LinkedIn 1,100 on Twitter 320 from embedded share buttons on product pages Total Social Shares = 6,220

Formula

Formula

\[ \mathrm{Social\ Shares} = \mathrm{Count\ of\ Share\ Events\ Across\ Platforms} \]

Data Model Definition

How this KPI is structured in Cube.js, including its key measures, dimensions, and calculation logic for consistent reporting.

cube('SocialShares', {
  sql: `SELECT * FROM social_shares`,

  measures: {
    totalShareEvents: {
      sql: `share_events`,
      type: 'sum',
      title: 'Total Share Events',
      description: 'Total number of share events across all platforms.'
    }
  },

  dimensions: {
    id: {
      sql: `id`,
      type: 'number',
      primaryKey: true,
      title: 'ID',
      description: 'Unique identifier for each share event.'
    },

    platform: {
      sql: `platform`,
      type: 'string',
      title: 'Platform',
      description: 'Social media platform where the content was shared.'
    },

    contentShared: {
      sql: `content_shared`,
      type: 'string',
      title: 'Content Shared',
      description: 'Description or identifier of the content that was shared.'
    },

    userId: {
      sql: `user_id`,
      type: 'number',
      title: 'User ID',
      description: 'Identifier for the user or account that shared the content.'
    },

    shareTime: {
      sql: `share_time`,
      type: 'time',
      title: 'Share Time',
      description: 'Timestamp of when the content was shared.'
    }
  }
});

Note: This is a reference implementation and should be used as a starting point. You’ll need to adapt it to match your own data model and schema

Positive & Negative Influences

  • Negative influences

    Factors that drive the metric in an undesirable direction, often signaling risk or decline.

    • Content Overload: An excess of content can overwhelm audiences, leading to lower share rates as users become selective about what they share.
    • Poor Content Quality: Low-quality content, whether due to poor production values or lack of substance, is less likely to be shared as it does not engage or resonate with audiences.
    • Complexity of Message: Content that is difficult to understand or overly complex can deter sharing, as audiences prefer to share content that is easily digestible.
    • Lack of Engagement: Content that fails to engage its audience, either through lack of interaction or interest, is less likely to be shared.
    • Negative Sentiment: Content that evokes negative emotions or is associated with negative sentiment can reduce the likelihood of sharing, as audiences may not want to associate themselves with such content.

  • Positive influences

    Factors that push the metric in a favorable direction, supporting growth or improvement.

    • Content Emotion and Utility: Content that evokes strong emotions or provides practical utility tends to be shared more frequently, as it resonates with audiences and encourages them to share with their networks.
    • Share Mechanics and Prompts: Implementing easy-to-use sharing tools and prompts, such as share buttons and pre-written messages, can significantly increase the likelihood of content being shared.
    • Social Proof and Authority: Content endorsed by credible sources or influencers often gains more traction, as audiences are more likely to share content that is perceived as authoritative or popular.
    • Engagement Rate: Higher engagement rates, such as likes and comments, often correlate with increased social shares, as engaged audiences are more likely to share content they find interesting or valuable.
    • Content Relevance: Content that is timely and relevant to current events or trends is more likely to be shared, as it aligns with what audiences are currently interested in.

Involved Roles & Activities

Funnel Stage & Type

  • AAARRR Funnel Stage

    This KPI is associated with the following stages in the AAARRR (Pirate Metrics) funnel:

    Awareness
    Referral

  • Type

    This KPI is classified as a Lagging Indicator. It reflects the results of past actions or behaviors and is used to validate performance or assess the impact of previous strategies.

Supporting Leading & Lagging Metrics

  • Leading

    These leading indicators influence this KPI and act as early signals that forecast future changes in this KPI.

    • Content Engagement: Content Engagement is a strong leading indicator for Social Shares, as higher user interaction and interest with content (such as time spent, comments, and likes) typically precede and drive an increase in sharing behavior across social platforms.
    • Brand Awareness: Brand Awareness acts as a leading indicator by increasing the pool of individuals who recognize and trust your brand, making them more likely to share your content and thus boosting Social Shares downstream.
    • Likes, Shares, Comments: High volumes of Likes and Comments frequently signal strong resonance and engagement, which often precede and correlate with increased sharing activity, making this a direct leading indicator for Social Shares.
    • Unique Visitors: An increase in Unique Visitors expands the potential audience for your content, creating more opportunities for sharing and amplifying future Social Shares.
    • Engagement Rate: A high Engagement Rate reflects that your content is resonating with your audience, which is a precursor to users sharing content with their networks, thus forecasting growth in Social Shares.

  • Lagging

    These lagging indicators confirm, quantify, or amplify this KPI and help explain the broader business impact on this KPI after the fact.

    • Organic Content Shares: Organic Content Shares directly quantifies the number of times content is shared without paid promotion, confirming and amplifying the total Social Shares metric and helping explain which types of shares are driving overall reach.
    • Branded Search Volume: An increase in Branded Search Volume often results from heightened brand advocacy and viral sharing activity; thus, it serves as a lagging indicator, confirming the broader business impact and awareness generated by Social Shares.
    • Share Rate Among ICPs: Share Rate Among ICPs quantifies how often your most valuable target audience is sharing content, helping to explain and segment the business impact of Social Shares within high-priority segments.
    • Influencer and Advocate Mentions: Mentions by influencers and advocates can both result from and further amplify Social Shares; as a lagging indicator, this metric quantifies the extended reach and advocacy driven by sharing activity.
    • Social Engagement from Target Accounts: This metric quantifies how much social engagement, including shares, comes specifically from key target accounts, amplifying the understanding of Social Shares’ impact within strategic segments and confirming advocacy among your desired audience.