Supposedly the summit of content marketing. A mirage that many marketers endeavour to reach. Of course, no other than getting your content to go viral. 

Undoubtedly there are a number of benefits to your business if the content you create suddenly becomes viewed by 100's of thousands of visitors and drives unprecedented engagement with your brand online. It can boost you up the search rankings and get your organisation in front of an audience of a magnitude that you had not considered previously possible. 

The outcome of which was what exactly? 

In order to understand the performance of your content, it is essential to look past 'vanity metrics'.

An article by Andrew Raso, Co-Founder of Online Marketing Gurus, on the CIM website, details a few metrics that will enable you to view engagement in a format that translates tangible value over spurious alternatives. 

• Conversions overReach
• Scroll depth over Time on page
• Comments over Social shares

Focusing your efforts on content to attain viral status obscures the underlying objectives. It is essential to understand how you communicate the value your brand delivers to the demographic you want to target. 

It is easy to follow metrics like 'reach' and 'social shares', however, they are not indicative of the ROI you can expect from the content you are creating. 'Conversions' and 'comments' rather will enable you to comprehend not only how your content is being engaged with online but also the individuals who are engaging with it. If these represent your target personas then you will have a much deeper understanding as to the value your brand can deliver and the ability to track their buyer journey. 

Therefore your time is better spent creating content for the "right" 1,000 people rather than the "wrong" 1,000,000. The aforementioned metrics will allow you the subsequently track your performance against your objectives.