Social media analytics insight: part 2
In a previous blog post you might recall we discussed how to use social media analytics tools to assess and measure engagement. In part two find out how to use tools to monitor progress, analyse competitors and evaluate hashtag usage.
Monitoring and measuring progress:
So you’ve just spent endless hours developing your strategy for a social campaign to increase awareness of your brand. Now the campaign’s over you’ll want to know if it was a success right?
The first thing you should look at is follower or fan growth. Why? Because follower and fan growth is a key indication of whether your campaign had a meaningful impact or not. Correlate the dates of your campaign with spikes or declines in follower and fan numbers. Were there any spikes during the dissemination of your key messages? Did follower growth sustain after your campaign ended?
In Twitter Analytics, click on ‘followers’ to view your overview. Lets say the middle of your campaign was September 1st, check out that date and measure any spikes. What you can then do is analyse the interests and demographics of that audience. If their top interest is technology and you’re an IT brand, well you’re probably on the right track!
Facebook’s metrics provide similar features for fan growth, which can be accessed via insights and the ‘people’ tab. If you’ve just designed a campaign targeting women, assess how many female fans liked your page and locate what cities they’re from.
Analyse your competitors:
How do you keep ahead of the competition? By analysing the efforts of your competitor’s. And how do you do that? Compare your competitor’s key performance indicators with your own. Having a greater understanding of how your competitors succeed in the social sphere can help to optimise your strategies for success. When it comes to analysing your competitors, you will more often than not require a paid analytics service.
Socialbakers is a great tool for analysing the top brands on social media categorised by industry. Gather key metrics on other brands – including fans, followers and interactions.
Socialbakers ‘interaction’ is the total number of likes, comments and shares. Find your industry competitors and compare their data with your own to see how you stack up.
Analyse your Hashtags:
Hashtags are terms used in Tweets, Facebook and Instagram that are clickable, searchable and most importantly measurable. They allow for campaign building and monitoring. Monitor hashtags to discover specific interests, attitudes and demographics and measure how people are using them.
Hashtracking is a tool you’ll love to use for analysing hashtags in the Twittersphere. Enter the hashtag you wish to search and gather instant information on its total tweet activity, the most influential users and a real time transcript. Have a look at influential users and see how they use the hashtag. Is there something they’re doing that makes it more effective? Look at the transcript. Is there a particular product or service users are discussing?
As you’ve probably gathered, there are a plethora of social media analytics tools out there you can use to analyse and optimise your digital activity.
You probably won’t want to implement all of these tools, but hopefully this has provided you with a deeper understanding of how you can use them and what you should be looking for.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the idea of using a multitude of analytics tools, try using them one at a time and find the ones that provide you with the most meaningful insights for your brand.
As always, if you are looking for further advice on on building your brand via social, online or offline marketing activities we’d love to chat. You can give us a call on (02) 9994 8005 or drop us a note.
