How do I use Social Media Analytics?

How do I use social media analytics

How do I use social media analytics

It is no doubt that social media can help your business if you use it properly, but how do you know if it’s working?

As social is all about relationship building, you may find it more difficult to track your social results in your regular analytics, which is where social analytics come in.

Most social networks now provide you with their own analytics reports, meaning you can get more out of your social, as long as you take the time to assess them and make changes accordingly.

These are being improved each day, as demand for certain functions grow, but for this post we are going to look at 3 of the biggest social media networks, where you can find your analytics, and how you can use them to smash your social media targets.

 

Facebook

Facebook has recently updated their analytics functions making them a bit more robust, with more options to look back over time, and breaking statistics into more segmented chunks.

If you go to your company Facebook page, you will see at the top of the page “page, messages, notifications, insights and publishing tools”. To get your analytics, you will have to click on insights.

Here your data is broken down into the following sections:

  • Overview
  • Likes
  • Reach
  • Page Views
  • Actions on Page
  • Posts
  • Videos
  • People
  • Local

 

Overview

As you would expect, this is an overview of all of your stats. So for a quick view of your reach, page likes, actions on page, videos and your 5 most recent posts. They also give you handy percentage indications to show if you have improved or decreased since the previous period.

 

Likes

You can see your total page likes over time and how they have improved or dropped. Your net likes, so when people have ‘unliked’ you, as well as when new likes. You can also view where your page likes happened.

 

Reach

This shows your post reach, both organic and paid. You can also see how many people are “reacting”, commenting and sharing. It also includes a handy graph that shows those who have hid your posts, reported as spam or unliked your page. These ‘negative’ results weren’t always easy to find previously, so being able to see when people have done this means you can pinpoint what content is driving your fans to negative reactions. Then finally you can see your total page reach, both organic and paid.

 

Page Views

Page views is quite self-explanatory, you can see how many people viewed your page! But Facebook has made changes, so you can now break that down by section of your page, age and gender, country, city or device. You can also view your top sources to your page, so for example if your website is pointing people to your Facebook, this will show up here.

 

Actions on Page

Actions on page is a great addition to the Facebook analytics, with businesses being able to view how many people clicked to get directions, how many clicked the phone number, how many clicked on to your website, and how many clicked on your call to action button. This can then be broken down by age & gender, country, city or device. Meaning you can really get a sense of how people are using your Facebook page, and if your call to actions on page (eg. ‘Read more on our website’ ‘Call us for a quote’ etc) are strong enough.

 

Posts

Posts is really useful for assessing your current content. Here, not only can you view when your Facebook Fans are online (giving you huge hints on when is best to post), but also how your different post types are doing, and the top posts from pages you watch. You can also review every post you have put live, and see its reach, number of post clicks and how many reaction, comments or shares it gained, which if monitored consistently means you can improve your posts over time by catering the right content.

 

Videos

As most social media users now know, videos and images are normally interacted with more than normal updates, so here you can check on just the videos you have posted. Here you can see you total number of video views, how many 30 second views you have had (showing people were really engaged with your content), and your top videos (with their reach, their views and average completion rate).

 

People

With this section you see a little more about the actual people who like your business. Their gender, age group and location all provide great info on perhaps who you should be targeting your marketing to outside of Facebook, as well as a good indication on who to advertise to if you do go through to Facebook Ads.

 

Local

Local is one of the latest functions Facebook has rolled out on their analytics, which has some really useful information regarding those who are in your immediate area. Though it is quite obvious this is meant to give you more data to use when you are paying for Facebook Ads, it does give you a good indicator of what those around you are doing. And if you are looking to grow locally, this is key. Finding out which gender and age group are most prominent around you allows you to create local “personas” to appeal to, as well as knowing when they are most active on Facebook and what day of the week you should focus on.

With Facebook’s organic reach getting smaller each day, I believe features like “local” will become more prominent, to encourage more businesses to use Facebook ad’s to promote.

 

How can I use Facebook Analytics?

Facebook Analytics are now incredibly in depth, so you can narrow down to key factors you want to improve upon, or more importantly for Facebook, key elements that you would pay to improve. Though there are a lot of paid options with Facebook, and a lot of businesses who have achieved great results from it, and it certainly seems to be the way Facebook wants to take. However, if you only want to keep costs down, you need to really keep track of the analytics that are coming in each week, and manually work on the elements that need more work using the data you have.

 

Twitter

To find analytics on twitter, press the little icon of your profile picture that is in the right hand top corner next to the tweet button and search feature. Select analytics, which will open a new window with your analytics. (If you are using this for the first time, you will have to set up your analytics first.)

You will see a number of headings that cover these topics:

  • Home
  • Tweets
  • Audiences
  • Events

 

Home

Is your overview page really, starting with your 28 day summary, this is a rolling 28 days, so whichever day of the month you click on to it, you can see up to date data on the last 28 days and comparisons to the previous 28 days before that. The 28 day summary includes:

  • The number of tweets and percentage change since last time
  • Tweet impressions and the percentage change since last time
  • Visits to your profile and percentage change since last time
  • Mentions of your company and percentage change
  • Followers and percentage change.

From then you can see a round up of each month, which includes your top tweet, your top mention, your top follower, your top media tweet, your total tweets for that month, your tweet impressions for that month, your profile visits for that month, your mentions for the month and your new followers for that month.

This is a great indicator straight off of how well you are doing on Twitter, and quite a motivational tool as you want to see your percentages in green rather than red.

 

Tweets

Tweets goes into extreme detail. You can see each of your tweets, their impressions, engagements and engagement rate for each tweet. You can look at all of your tweets, your top tweets, your tweets and replies, as well as your promoted traffic. You can also see an overview of your engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, likes and replies. You can also export this data, meaning you can come back to review it at a later date if you wish.

As with Facebook, knowing which tweets created a good reaction means you can update future content to be more like those posts, so you can work to gradually improving your engagement rate.

 

Audiences

Your audience tab breaks down various elements about your audience. From the demographics (gender, language, country, region), to the lifestyle (interests, TV genres), down to even your mobile footprint (most popular wireless carrier, and device).

Again this allows you an insight into who is actually interested in your company, allowing you to create ‘personas’ to market to, who are more likely to show interest.

 

Events

Is really useful for future planning, and allows you to browse events on twitter by category, location, or time, and sometimes can offer an anticipated audience size.

 

How can I use Twitter Analytics?

Twitter is quite similar to Facebook, in that it wants you to find what is not working on your page, and pay to improve these things (They’re still businesses after all). Which again is a valid option, but if you are looking to keep costs down, you will have to spend a little more of your time going over the reports. Take in the interests of the majority of your followers, create, retweet and like more content that relates to that. Use the event function to find relevant events, and use the stats from your own tweets to understand what people are reacting to.

 

LinkedIn

To find your analytics on LinkedIn, go on to your companies page, under your name you will see “Home, Analytics and notifications”. Click analytics.

Here you can view your

  • Updates
  • Followers
  • Visitors

The first thing you will notice is it is all based on one page, and is a lot less detailed than the other reports we have looked at.

 

Updates

On updates you can view each of your posts, the impressions gained, clicks, interaction, followers acquired and engagement percentage. You can also see your engagement figures in graph form, as well as your reach. Once again, the higher the engagement rate on the post, the more you should use that style of post.

 

Followers

On followers you can view your total followers, the demographics, as well as how you compare to other pages. This is great for checking if you are even in the same playing field as your competitors, and if not, how far you are off. You can also see if you are attracting the right level of people to follow your page, you may need to focus on attracting more decision makers to your page.

 

Visitors

You can view your page views, your unique visitors, as well as your visitor demographics. Which is really interesting to see who is visiting but not necessarily following your page. Could you make updates to your page to encourage people to hit the follow button?

 

How can I use LinkedIn Analytics?

LinkedIn is slightly different to the other two networks we have looked at, in a couple of ways. Firstly, it’s not as in depth, you don’t get half as much statistics and figures as you do on the other networks, and secondly LinkedIn is still trying to help you improve. Though they still offer a “sponsored” post option, they also provide pointers throughout their analytics of how to improve engagement, How to build relationships and a ‘get inspired’ page too, meaning you can learn more from the site itself on how to improve your posts for absolutely free.

 

So what do I need to do?

It’s a lot simpler than you think…

 

Look at what’s doing well, replicate it again.

Whether that’s a style of post, a time you post, the amount you post, or any other factor of your social media, do it more (but always in moderation, don’t post 60 pictures a day because people like pictures).

 

Look at what’s doing bad, don’t do that again.

If a type of content never receives a response, or your impressions figures drastically drop during a certain point of the day, then stop posting that type of content or at that time of day.

Much like those who preach that to be healthier you need to “eat less and do more” to be great at social media, you need to replicate the good, and ditch the bad. It’s a simple theory, which is correct in essence, but does skim over the hard work, patience and having to motivate yourself every day.

Keep at it, take note of your results, make changes, and things will improve.

 

So now you have all the knowledge of where to find your social analytics, and some idea of how to put it into practice.

If you’re still struggling with keeping track of your social media, then why not give us a call?

Is social media working for my business?

is social media working for my business

is social media working for my business

So you’ve read our blogs this month, and many other blogs and articles and news stories for that matter, but you’re still not sure that social media is actually working for you. So what steps can you take to see if it’s actually making a difference, or if you need to make some changes?

 

Do you currently monitor your social media?

Let’s start with what you are currently doing. How do you currently monitor your social media? Are you doing enough? Are you doing anything at all? Social is a great tool, but like any marketing, you need to be monitoring your efforts so you can effectively see what return you have. But many businesses fail to monitor the actual results from their efforts, or may only take a single statistic of how many immediate, obvious sales were bought in by social.

 

Set up a monitoring plan

So how do you get organised to take in all these stats? First and foremost, take the time to set up a plan, it will save you time in the long run, and give you consistent results. This includes what you want to achieve (x leads per month, x new followers per week etc.), time you can allocate to it, a template of the stats you want to monitor. Having a set up like this, and taking a larger initial chunk of time to set yourself on the right path will save you scores of time in the future.

 

Have you achieved those results?

Frequently assess, and see if you have achieved the results you set out to. Some goals are easier to qualify than others, so if you were looking to achieve a certain amount of new followers than you can see at a glance if you have achieved this or not. Using analytics, you can probably also see when you have gained followers, so you can replicate the results again and again. If you are looking for leads, your definition of a lead may change as time goes on. But again, when you see the positive results you want to see, replicate it again to prove that works.

 

Are you posting enough? Is your target audience there?

If you’re not achieving the results you want, then look at your posts. Are there enough, and is it relevant to those you are trying to reach? Not achieving your results? Dig down into your stats and analytics, and try to see what just hasn’t performed that well, and who your engaged audience are. Does your desired audience use this social platform, and if not, is it worth your effort to continue with.

 

Have you lost anything from it?

When you aren’t achieving obvious sales from your social efforts, it can be hard to see the value, but ask yourself, have you lost anything from it? If you are not seeing any negative effects from it, then maybe you need to wait a little longer to see the positive.

 

Social media is like any other marketing method. Some will see great results from it and others won’t. But before you dismiss it as an option, you need to ensure that you have done all you can. To engage with your audience, given them chance to respond, and consider that even if you’re not gaining anything from it right now, if you aren’t losing anything, is it worth pushing forward for the long term effects?

 

The Marketing Dogs – March News

The marketing dogs March News

The marketing dogs March News

Ahoj humans, Sammy here, we’ve seen lots of snow this month, so it’s been a few weeks of staying cuddled up for us Marketing Dogs.

I’ve moved around the office, and got a new desk, Chops helped me pick which one would be best, and thoroughly investigated a few options. We decided this one would be best as I get the best sun from two of the windows. Plus I get to keep a close eye on Lauren and Laurie.

Chops and Sammy on the desk

Even with the extra sunlight, it was still pretty cold, so mum gave me an extra blanket. The humans joke about me being a bit spoilt, but I don’t know what on earth they mean.

Sammy wrapped up in blanket

The cold weather has meant our daily commute from the office has been a little chillier than normal, which has meant coats for all of us! I’d much prefer to hide in bed then walk to work, but mum always ushers me out, and George and Chops motivate me to get going.

Sammy, George and Chops in coats

It was also mothers day in the last few weeks, so we gave mum lots of extra special cuddles, even if we do take over her chair, she knows we really love her.

Chops did give mum a bit of a scare though and had a funny turn. The nice vet has said everything is okay, and she’s racing around as normal, but I think poor mum still in shock!

Office wise we’ve been keeping the humans in check, and I’ve been perfecting my management style. I think I’ve got my stern managers look nailed to a tee. Though I’m not 100% on what sort of manager I want to be yet.

Sammy looking stern

As well as been stern, I have been rewarding hard work, as you can see here, I think Laurie really appreciated my thankful handshake.

Laurie and Sammy

I think George and Chopsies teachings have paid off, and I’m well on my way to being a manager. Though I still get a little too excited when the humans bring out tasty food, it seems to keep them entertained at the very least. I think they even put a video of me on Facebook.

Thanks for reading my very first blog post, George is strutting back on to the blog next time, so until then sbohem!

How do I get leads from Social Media?

How do i get leads from social

How do i get leads from social

Lots of businesses talk about getting leads from social media, but it’s all a load of rubbish right? No one can really gain anything from this chatter across the web and get serious business from it?

Wrong. There’s a reason everyone is talking social media, and that’s because it works. You just need to have a little more knowledge, and a lot of persistence to make it work.

Though that being said, there are no promises, it comes down to making sure you are in the right place, at the right time, with the right information for this to work.

And once you have social cracked it serves a number of purposes for your marketing. It’s your brand awareness, it’s your customer service and it’s your inbound marketing. So if you’re really looking to up the results on gaining leads through inbound, what should you be focused on?

 

Build Relationships

Social is not about instant sales. It is about relationship building. Don’t forget that when it comes to searching for leads. Taking the time to interact with others, and to not be anti-social is good practice to building for leads. You are much more likely to use someone you know for products or services, than someone you don’t know who randomly approaches you.

 

Business hours.

Local business hours on twitter are a great way to meet other local businesses and build up links between you. Working once again on relationship building, know that it’s not always about you! Business hours are a great time to promote others as well as yourself. You can also use this style of relationship building in LinkedIn groups and Facebook groups.

 

Utilise the search function.

Look for stuff. Sounds simple I know, but when was the last time you used the search function on your social media? Especially twitter where you can search a term and find people who are asking for that actual term. For example ‘can people manage my social media’ brings up a whole host of tweets that contain those words. Yes you have to search through those to see which actually qualify, but you may just connect with someone who is directly searching for your services.

 

Consistent posting.

You cannot expect to post once and gain leads from it. Social media serves as a reminder of your services, and if you’re not regularly posting, chances are people are not going to think of your name straight away. By consistently being there, not only do you reaffirm your presence, but you also build your credibility and reassure your audience that you know what you are talking about, and are someone they may want to work with.

 

Referrals.

Social media is a two way street, so you can’t expect people to refer you if you don’t refer others. If you use a great service, shout about it! The more you post about others, the more likely people will post about you. And once you start receiving referrals, your social reach becomes a lot bigger, leaving you open to a lot more traffic, and what is that traffic seeing? All nice lovely comments about you, making them much more likely to contact you.

 

Still struggling on being more social? We might be able to help, call us today on 01543 495752 to arrange to pop in for a cuppa.