Social Media Analytics Tips & Best Practices

Because social media has become such an integral part of the Internet, it’s a smart decision for any business to include social media in their marketing strategy. And while it wasn’t that long ago when plenty of businesses were still on the fence about the effectiveness of social media marketing, it’s now possible to use social media analytics to see the exact results that your efforts generate.

What’s really appealing about using analytics is not only will you be able to see how well your social efforts are working, but you’ll actually be able to make adjustments based on the data you collect. The only issue is when you first start to collect this type of data, you may feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount that’s available. To help you benefit from your analytics data instead of getting buried by it, let’s look at the best areas to focus your attention:

Find the Ideal Times for Sharing

We’ve previously covered information about the best time to post to the most popular social media networks. However, since the exact time that’s best for one business may be different for another, it’s worth your time to run some experiments. Then you can look at your analytics and see exactly when you should be sharing. You’ll want to do this type of social media monitoring separately for both Twitter and Facebook, as well as any other social networks where you have an active presence.

Figure Out How Much to Share

Sharing too much content through your social media profiles will cause people to get frustrated and stop following you. But not sharing enough can lead to them forgetting about you and your business. And with Facebook, the frequency of your sharing can also be a factor that’s weighed by their algorithm that’s responsible for determining the visibility of your posts. Those are all reasons why it’s important to figure out the right amount of content to share. As with the previous tip, the answer to this question may be different for Twitter than it is for Facebook. Fortunately, utilizing analytics will make it fairly simple to see how different sharing frequencies impact the overall engagement you attract on each site that you use.

Experiment with Different Messages and Formats

When you share a blog post or other piece of content, you want as many people as possible to read it. In order for that to happen, people first have to click the link. With the help of social media tracking, you can answer questions like whether links with a quote or by themselves get more clicks.

Determine Which Sources Help Your Bottom Line the Most

Because the social media landscape is so diverse, it makes sense to have a presence on multiple sites. However, it also makes sense to put more effort into the site(s) that drive the most new customers to you. By utilizing social analytics for conversion tracking, you can hone your social strategy to help maximize revenue.

As long as you start utilizing the information we covered today, you’ll be able to use your social media analytics program to get even better results from your online marketing efforts.