The Importance of Social Media Analytics and Which Metrics Should Be Used In Different Settings
Nowadays, as social media is expanding, it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out and make a social media account popular. However, it is simply not impossible. But what is the key to making your account stand out and grow rapidly? The answer is simple, social media analytics.
What Are Social Media Analytics?
According to The Importance of Social Media Analytics, social media analytics is a system that allows for the collection, aggregation, and standardization of social media data to discover and communicate meaningful patterns.
Analytics can be extremely beneficial to a brand in a variety of ways. But how exactly do they help? Let’s talk about it.
How Analytics Help
As stated by 6 Important Reasons Why You Should Use Social Media Analytics, there are a number of ways that analytics can be useful to your brand. The reasons from the article are stated down below.
- They help you understand your audience.
Analytics help you understand your audience in a deeper manner, therefore allowing them to connect with your brand better. For example, analyzing when the best time to post is. You should post whenever your audience is most free, which can be very helpful.
2. They show you what your best social networks are.
Analytics can help you identify what social networks work best for your brand. Different audiences like different things, which depends on the specific brand.
3. Social data can help you create better content.
Analytics provide you with the opportunity to see what kinds of content your audience best likes. This can help later on, as you are able to cater your content to their likes, therefore making it more successful.
4. Help you understand your competitors
Analytics can provide you with insight on what kind of content is working for your competitors and what is not. This will provide you with a better insight on what to post yourself.
5. Social media can help you create better strategy.
Studying your analytics can help you find what mistakes are being made and how to correct them accordingly. Analytics help you improve your strategy and find out how to make it develop in a more efficient manner.
6. Social media analytics show you how a campaign is performing.
You can check your campaign regularly and see how it is doing with the help of analytics. This will give you an indication of what will work best later on.
Now that we have introduced the importance of analytics, it is essential to talk about how they can be used differently and in different settings. There are different metrics that are used for different groups, which we will discuss below.
Metrics for Your Boss
In a business setting, your boss will want to see monthly reports on their company’s analytics. They will care about certain metrics, which are stated below from The Key Social Media Metrics Your Boss Cares About.
- Post reach — how many people see your post.
- Interaction — if you content is getting any interest amongst different channels.
- Shares — if your audience is helping expand your brand reach.\
- Traffic to website — how many times your website is being visited and how many new visitors it’s getting.
- Leads from each social channel.
- Conversions from each social channel.
Metrics for You
Just like there are metrics your boss should see, there are some that you should pay attention to yourself. According to The most important social media metrics to track, these are the ones you should pay attention to.
The article mentions engagement metrics such as: likes, comments, and retweets (on each platform), your post engagement rate (number of engagements divided by impressions of reach), and account mentions (who mentions your account and how many times it gets mentioned per day.
The article mentions impressions and reach, which should be checked on a daily basis as well. Additionally, referrals and conversions should be tracked as well. You’ll want to see how a user lands on your website and what they purchase from it.
Metrics for Your Team
And lastly, there are the metrics that are essential to have while being on your company’s management team. According to 19 Social Media Metrics That Really Matter And How to Track Them, there are a variety of important metrics.
The article mentions brand awareness, post reach, social reach, and social share of voice (how many people are mentioning your brand compared to your competitors).
Along with this, there are many more metrics such as the applause rate (number of likes and retweets in comparison to your number of followers), average engagement rate, amplification rate (ratio of shares per post to number of followers), and the virality rate (number of unique views relative to the number of people who shared your post).
The article concludes with the mention of customer and conversion metrics, as some of the many are stated above.
Now that we have discussed the importance of analytics, hopefully you are able to value their importance and use them more often to improve your brand!
