In this day and age, you’re probably well aware of the importance of having a strong and productive social media presence. Social media has increasingly grown from a sideline activity to become an integral component of business success.
But, as with all good marketing tools, what use is social media if you’re unable to actually measure or evaluate whether your organisation is using it effectively?
Your business may already have an established social media profile, but have you ever wondered who just read your latest tweet or Facebook post? Have you ever wondered who is actually viewing your site? Or perhaps you just want to know how popular you are?
Answering these questions can help determine whether your social media activity is actually fulfilling its intended purpose. So how do you find these solutions?
Let us give you an insight into social media analytics and a few reasons why your organisation should be using it.
Social media analytics
In basic terms, it’s the process of gathering data from blogs or social media websites and analysing that information to gain insight into to your strategic decisions.
Tools are used to measure and track activity, tracking is key to ensuring you’re reaching your intended audience at the right time. This is essential for generating more clicks on your content and traffic to your pages, as well as building your reputation or brand.
Why you’ll love social media analytics:
- You can pinpoint the posts that are working and the ones that aren’t. Comments, clicks, shares, likes and favourites are excellent indicators to use here. Knowing what content really connects and interests your audience is likely to lead to greater interaction and increase your overall reach.
- You can monitor and measure your progress, allowing you to see the full picture! Measure how many new people followed your page after a particular post or even find out where they came from. For example, you might notice that a greater number of your website visits are stemming more from Facebook than Twitter, so you can use this information to implement a revised Twitter strategy and increase traffic from both pages.
- You’ll save time and increase your overall efficiency. Posting anything and everything is a waste of time and can potentially result in lost followers. When using analytics you’ll find yourself saying “our followers love these posts” or “we wont be posting that again.” Finding the best ways to use your business’ time or resources is crucial to its effectiveness and proficiency.
- You can learn about your business and your audience. Keeping an eye on what people are saying about your business, products, competitors or industry, is a great way to discover how your audience is feeling, what they’re thinking and where you could make changes or improvements.
- Think of it as market research! Gain knowledge on who your audience actually are, what makes them tick and what their likes and dislikes are.
- Find out who you’re competing with. Just like you can analyse your own business, you can check out the competition as well. Content your competitors release to their followers is free for your perusal. Find out how customers are using their products or what difficulties they may be facing. Any information you find could be crucial to your competitive advantage.
In our next blog, “Social media analytics tools we’re loving right now”, we’ll delve into the plethora of social media analytics tools available and give you an insight into our top 5 tools for social media success.
Of course, if you’d like to learn more about social media analytics or how you can build your social media success strategy, we’d love to help! You give us a call on (02) 9994 8005 or drop us a note.
