Social Media Analytics – What it Means, and Why it’s Important

Today, social media is an essential component of any online marketing or SEO campaign.  Most marketers realise the importance of engaging in social media, but some don’t realise how important it is to analyse the results of their efforts.  Participating in social media without analysing whether what you are doing is working can result in a substantial amount of wasted time and effort. As an online marketer or business owner, you need to understand social media analytics – what it is, and why it’s important.

What is social media analytics?  Basically, it’s a method of tracking your activities on various sites including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, all the rest.  Analysing what you are doing can help determine if you are making progress with your efforts, and what’s working – or isn’t.  Why spend time on social media activities that don’t yield results in terms of new leads or customers? 

 Marketing a business online takes an incredible amount of time, and let’s face it – participating in social media can be a large chunk of that time.  Social media analytics streamlines it all, making it much easier and less time consuming to determine if you are wasting your time in some areas, or need to put more focus in other directions.

Social media analytics make it possible to:

• Ÿ  Actually see how many fans you have accumulated on a given social media site within a specified time period
• Ÿ  Track the number of contacts (potential leads) you have developed with your efforts
• Ÿ  See which platform – and even link – a potential lead or contact came from
• Ÿ  Work smarter, not harder as you can allocate your time more effectively
• Ÿ  Decipher customer sentiment, which can be beneficial in identifying opportunities, managing threats, and neutralising any negative affect of consumers’ comments or complaints

When it comes to social media marketing, businesses should avoid the approach of “throwing something out there” and seeing what sticks.  Consumers are all over the web today, using the Internet more and more to not only search for products and information, but to interact with others, giving their own opinions and eager to hear what others have to say.  Therefore, it is essential you listen to what consumers are saying about your brand, whether bad or good.  This helps you gain insight into your target audience’s preferences, spending patterns, and perhaps most important of all, helps you connect in a more positive way to potential customers, growing your brand.

Are you using social media analytics in your online marketing efforts?  There are some amazing tools available today that will help you easily manage your social media efforts, saving you an incredible amount of time and enhancing your success.  A few of these tools include the Sysomos Map System , Sprout Social  and Followerwonk. 

Here are a few highlights of each tool:

The Sysomos Map System is social media software offers

• Ÿ  Comprehensive real-time monitoring dashboard
• Ÿ  Management of all of your social profiles within one platform
• Ÿ  In-depth analytics and insights 

With Sprout Social, businesses enjoy

• Ÿ  Cohesive experience across multiple platforms, no matter what type of mobile device you use
• Ÿ  Smart Inbox full functionality, making it possible to monitor incoming alerts and messages and engage with customers while on the go
• Ÿ  Unlimited analytics reports ready for presentation to your team 

Followerwonk makes it possible for you to analyse your efforts on Twitter

• Ÿ  Helping you grow and explore your social graph
• Ÿ  Digging deeper into critical info such as who your followers are, and where they’re located
• Ÿ  Locating and connecting  with new influencers specific to your niche or industry

We advise readers to try out these social media analytics tools – and of course there are others available, we just wanted to give you a little taste of how easy it can really be to analyse your social media efforts!