Social media can be a goldmine for your digital marketing strategy. You can “strike oil” if you know where to focus your content marketing process. This is the advantage of having social media analytics. It will help you track, monitor, and evaluate key data so you will have a solid basis for fine-tuning your social media strategy.
4 Benefits Of Using Social Media Analytics
- Track and measure the performance of every piece of social media content. By identifying the types of content that generated the best results you will be able to re-share the posts that garnered the highest levels of engagement.
- You will be able to identify the poor performing posts and have accurate data to find ways to improve them.
- Stay updated on trends; industry developments and changes in audience preferences and behavior so you will have an idea which topics are of great interest to your followers.
- Pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your current social media marketing campaign so you can identify which strategies generate the highest ROI.
What Is Social Media Analytics?
More than 3 billion people log in to some type of social media platform every day. That is nearly half of the world’s population. Thus, with such a large volume of users, social media will guarantee you of high-level activity. People will be constantly viewing, reading, engaging, sharing, and liking content.
However, not all posts will be viewed, read, engaged on, shared or liked. Some will receive more attention than others. Not all content that is posted on social media will be liked or shared.
If your social media posts seem largely ignored, don’t throw in the towel! Keep in mind that social media networks are communities made up of people with individual behavioral attributes.
People react to posts differently. They may click on your content and read it but they don’t have to like it or share it. That does not mean they didn’t enjoy your content. In fact, they might follow your page after reading your content.
The best way to make heads or tails of how your social media efforts are performing is to use social media analytics. It analyzes data-driven metrics to track and measure the results of your various social media activities.
The Importance Of Setting Goals In Social Media: Types Of Social Media Goals
What drives you to create content for social media? What do you want to accomplish? What are your expectations?
In short, what are your goals for your social media marketing campaign?
Creativity may be the key attribute behind the content marketing process, but you need to channel that creativity toward a specific purpose. While creativity is more of a function of artistic expression, you need data to give your content strategy direction.
Therefore, the first step in designing a social media marketing campaign is to establish your goals.
We noticed during our preliminary meetings with digital marketing clients that they are unsure of their social media marketing goals. There is a common belief that in social media marketing, the goal is all about getting likes, shares, and comments.
While getting a like on your post or having it shared is certainly a great feeling of accomplishment, the result should keep you aligned toward accomplishing your goal.
Here is a rundown of the 5 basic goals that you could have for your social media marketing campaign:
1. Increase Traffic – If you are having trouble increasing traffic to your website, social media marketing is a proven way of driving more site visits.
2. Increase the Number of Followers – Social media is an effective platform to enhance your reputation as an expert. If people find your content a valuable resource or a reliable and consistent source of information, they will not hesitate to follow you.
3. Maximize the Level of Engagement – Your posts will truly become social when someone engages with it. Engagement is interaction and can come in the form of a like, share, or a comment.
This creates an opportunity for you to establish a connection and potentially build on it and gain some future value.
4. Maximize Your Reach and Total Number of Impressions – This is what we were referring to earlier. It does not matter if no one liked your post.
If some people took the time to click on it and read its contents, then you have successfully maximized your reach and number of impressions.
In social media, getting visibility for your content is likewise important. That is why posting frequently is a key strategy.
5. Increase the Rate of Sales Conversions – Ultimately, what you would want to do is to convert interest into sales. You want your website visitor to become a paying customer.
Social media marketing is an organic approach to digital marketing. Unlike paid advertising which is more direct, it may take longer to accomplish your goals but at the same time, a successful social media marketing campaign can create positive residual and sustainable results.
Before coming up with your social media marketing goals, you should make sure these goals are aligned with your business goals.
For example, a startup will have a different social media marketing goal compared to a business that is trying to expand its services.
A startup’s content line up should include the following:
- Feature on the company; its business, founders, management and staff, the office premises, factory, and operating procedures.
- Advantages of using the company’s products and services.
- “How To” and List-Type articles that explain how the company’s business can help its audience find solutions.
- Product reviews.
An established business that is in the process of scaling its operations can have a content line-up covering the following areas:
- History of the company’s growth and achievements over the years.
- Current development plans of the company.
- An in-depth analysis of trends in the industry.
- Articles on the company’s socio-civic activities.
- Client testimonials.
Glossary Of Popular Terms In Social Media Analytics
In order to have an easier time understanding social media analytics and how it can benefit your business, it pays to know some of its most popularly used terms.
- Actions on Page – This term refers to the number of clicks received by your Call-To-Action (CTA) button and Contact Information.
- Engagement – Engagement is one of the most important metrics in social media analytics. It measures the number of times someone has interacted with your social media post.
- Impressions – The number of people who saw or viewed your social media post.
- Engagement Rate – This is measured by dividing Engagement with the number of impressions.
- Followers – The term refers to the number of people who have seen your post on their timeline.
- Page Likes – Refers to the total number of people who have seen and liked your page.
- Page Previews – Refers to the number of people who have gone over your profile and page name in order to view your content.
- Page Views – The number of times people have visited and viewed your social media profile page.
- Post Clicks – Tracks the number of times people have clicked on your post.
- Post Reach – This metric tracks down and records the number of people who have seen your posts on their screen. Post Reach is measured and categorized as total, promotions, and organic.
How To Use Social Media Analytics
You don’t need to open a business page on every social media network on the Internet. A social media platform is its own community with their own strengths and purposes.
A good point of comparison would be Facebook and LinkedIn. Facebook is the largest social media network on the Internet with more than 2 billion users. In comparison, LinkedIn only has 575 million users.
However, the organic reach of Facebook has been declining since 2014. This means fewer people are interacting with published content. One reason for this is Facebook’s decision to transition to an ad agency. There are more ads and marketing content appearing on the news feed and this is turning off many users.
Facebook is a popular source for news and entertainment content. When someone logs into Facebook he/she wants to relax and stay updated on his/her network. Ads are seen as distractions much as they would on regular television.
LinkedIn is primarily a networking platform. People who want to look for jobs, clients, and expand their network of contacts have LinkedIn as their social media platform of choice.
Thus, if you want to use Facebook as the vehicle for your content, post articles that are meant to entertain, provide useful information, and presented in a less formal tone.
In LinkedIn, opinion posts carry more value. For example, if you are in the real estate business, share your opinions on property price trends and the direction of the prime lending rate.
Your choice of social media platforms should have the community, the culture, and the ideal conditions to support your overall social media marketing goals.
There are many social media analytics tools that you can use to measure the performance of your posts. In addition, every social media network has its own built-in analytics. You can use these analytics tools to assess the performance of your posts.
Here is a summary of the key metrics that you should look into when using any of the following popular social media analytics tools for each network:
1. Facebook
- Likes – A “like” can be as good as a comment. Take note of the use of emoticons.
- Comments – Negative comments can give you clues on what to improve on your content.
- Shares – The higher the number of shares the greater the probability of your content going viral.
- Referral Traffic – If more people are visiting your website because of your Facebook content, it means you are considered a valuable or credible source of information.
- Page Views – More page views mean higher exposure for your brand.
- Engagement Rate – A high engagement rate means more people are interested in your content.
- Video Metrics – Measures how long people watch your posted video-based content.
- Page Fan Growth – Focus on your page’s organic growth. The number of followers reflects your status as an authority figure in the industry.
- Conversions – Measures the level of the persuasiveness of your copy. If your Facebook post leads to a web page with conversion intent, use Google Analytics to monitor the rate of conversions.
2. Twitter
- Retweets – The higher the number of retweets the greater the opportunity for your tweet to build a larger audience.
- Replies – Signifies level of engagement; it will let you know if your tweet has resonated with other people in your community.
- Tweets Linking to You – Measures the number of people talking about your tweet and sharing it with their community.
- Tweet Likes – Shows you how many people appreciate your content.
- Tweet Impressions – In a high activity network like Twitter, visibility is very important. The more views, the better for your content and brand building goal.
- Profile Visits – Gives you an idea of how many people are becoming interested in your business, products, and services.
3. LinkedIn
- Impressions – Measures how many community members have seen your content.
- Clicks – The higher the number of clicks, the greater the probability of driving traffic to your website.
- Interactions – Indicates the level of interest in your content.
- Engagement Rate – Gives you an idea of the value of your content to its viewers.
- Visitor Demographics – Gives you an idea of the demographics of the people viewing your content.
4. Instagram
- Likes – In Instagram, getting a “like” carries more weight compared to Facebook or any other social media network because there are very few data points available in this platform.
- Comments – Positive comments help your brand became more influential.
- Engagement Rate – The higher the number, the greater the level of interest in your content.
- Total Followers – More followers mean greater opportunities to increase the visibility of your brand.
Conclusion
By having a better understanding of your social media data, you will be able to spot trends, identify the posts that are performing very well, and pinpoint flaws in your campaign.
Without analytics, you will miss out on potential opportunities to improve your audience’s overall experience in your social media platforms. You might not be able to catch red flags that could greatly compromise your digital marketing objectives.
It takes tremendous time, effort, and resources to create social media content. For example, a well-researched 2,400-word blog will take around 4 hours to write.
Social media analytics will give your content creation process direction and strategy. It will ensure that your efforts will yield ROI by guiding you to create content that produces the intended results.
Did you enjoy our article? If you have ideas and suggestions on how to effectively use social media analytics, please feel free to share them in our comments section.
If you’re interested in implementing digital marketing strategies for your business, give us a call. We’ll gladly give you a free 30-minute consultation and let you know how our expertise and experience in digital marketing can help take your business to the next level.
