Social media: Using analytics to improve business performance
Nov 17, 2020
So you’ve set up your social channels and have been posting content. Now what?
One of the most valuable tools at your disposal on social media is analytics. Each platform has its own, and most social media management platforms, such as Hootsuite and Buffer, offer their own analytics as well. Knowing what you’re looking for is key, otherwise it’s easy to get lost in a sea of graphs and figures. Social media metrics are vast.
There are countless reasons why you should be monitoring and tracking your social media metrics. I’ve listed some of the most common (and important) reasons below:
To understand your audience:
If you want to know more about the people following you, then social analytics can provide you will all sorts of information. You can find out the gender split, age range and top locations of your followers. You can even find out when they are most active, broken down into days and hours. All of this can be used to help you plan your content strategy as well as inform your paid advertising efforts.
To track KPI’s:
Your KPI’s will be based on your social media goals, and your social media goals can depend on a variety of things, including how established you are already on social media. If you’re just starting out, your goal will likely be brand awareness, and so KPI’s will be impressions and reach, as well as follower number – all of which you can track in social analytics. While follower number is something of a vanity metric, you will obviously want to see this increasing month on month. If your goal is to build on and manage an engaged community, you’ll need to monitor engagement (likes, comments, retweets, pins, shares etc).
Things are a little more complex if your goal is to drive traffic from your organic content, as you will need Google Analytics on your website to really see how well social is performing for you. However, this is where paid Facebook advertising comes into its own. By placing a Facebook pixel on your website it’s possible to measure how many people visit your site from a Facebook Ad, and then by adding a standard event to work alongside the pixel you’ll be able to track what they do once they arrive. You’ll also be able to look at CPL or CPC (cost per lead or cost per conversion).
To refine your strategy:
Your social media strategy should be a constantly evolving beast and will play an integral part in your wider marketing strategy. Test out different types of content, track which your audience enjoys the most and refine your strategy to reflect this. You can even use social analytics to understand which platforms are worth continuing to invest in, or when to post to reach the optimum number of people.
At Vista, we use our social media expertise to help you decide which channels will deliver the best return on investment for your business. As expert brand builders, we create meaningful and lasting relationships with customers, carefully curating content that weaves through every online touch point and drives a connection to our client’s business. We provide fast and effective customer service to keep customers happy and loyal. Our expertise in content marketing - incorporating SEO into traditional PR methods, social media and paid social means we deliver integrated campaigns that build brands online, drive sales online and help our clients achieve their business goals.
A recent study by CORQ, the digital trend forecasters, has highlighted the significant impact of creator partnerships on audience engagement, providing valuable insights for brands and PR professionals. At Vista Public Relations, we are dedicated to staying ahead of industry trends and insights to better serve our clients, so here we dive into the key findings of the study and their implications for the evolving landscape of brand communications and consumer engagement.
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