Google Analytics Features for SocialMedia Monitoring

Zaenal AkbarFebruary 19, 2014

Copyright 2014 STI INNSBRUCK www.sti-innsbruck.at

Outline

Google AnalyticsSocial Data

Social InteractionsSocial Activities

Social ReportsReferences

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Google Analytics

Use: measures user interactions with websites acrossvarious devices and environments.The Google Analytics Platform provides all the computingresources to collect, store, process, and report on thoseuser-interactions.

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Social Data

Social Data sources:1. Social Interactions → user interactions with social

buttons, e.g. the Google+ “+1” button, the Facebook “Like”button.

2. Social Activities → social actions that happens “off-site”on a social network and references a content on a website,e.g. +1, comment, vote, share, etc.

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Social Interactions

User interactions with social buttons and widgets, e.g.Google+ “+1” button, Facebook “Like” button.Measuring social interactions to gain additional insight intosocial engagement with a content on a website.

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Social Interactions

Dimensions1. Social Source → the social network being tracked (e.g.

Google, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn)2. Social Action → the social action being tracked (e.g. +1,

like, bookmark)3. Social Source and Action → the concatenation of the social

network and action measured4. Social Entity → the URL (or resource) which receives the

social network actionMetrics

1. Social Actions → the total number of social interactions2. Unique Social Interactions → the number of sessions which

the specified social action(s) occurred at least once3. Actions per Social Visit → the number of social interactions

per visit or session

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Social Interactions

A user interacts withembedded Twittershare buttons on twoseparate articlesduring a single visit

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Social Activities

A social activity represents a social action (e.g. +1,comment, vote, share) that references a website’s contentThe social action originates “off-site”, on a social networknot originate from the websiteInclude additional metadata related to the action: the socialnetwork, user, time, photo, comments, etc.

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Social Activities

Dimensions:Social Network, Originating Social Action, Social Networkand Action, Display Name, Endorsing URL, Social ActivityPost, Social Activity Timestamp, User Photo URL, UserProfile URL, Shared URL, Social Tags Summary, SocialUser HandleMetrics:Data Hub Activities → the count of activities where acontent URL was shared or mentioned

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Social Activities → Activity Stream

The aggregation of social activities related to a particularpiece of content or a website

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Social Activities → Collection

GA automatically collects information for various socialnetworks using a partner network (social data hub)Social data hub partners provide a stream of all publiclyavailable social activities that occur on their respectivesocial networkFor example: Google+ sends social activity data for allpublic posts to GA social data hub, Diigo sends socialactivity data for all public bookmarks, etc.

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Social Activities → Collection

Social Plug-in Analytics → the collection method to tracksocial activity on an individual websiteSocial Tracking Method: trackSocial(network,

socialAction, opt target, opt pagePath)

Parameters:network, where the action occurs (e.g. Facebook, Twitter)socialAction, the type of action (e.g. Like, Send, Tweet)opt target, the subject of the action, typically a URL targetopt pagePath, the page from which the action occurred

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Social Reports

Network Referrals → shows social networksengagement, metrics: Pageviews, Avg. VisitDuration, Pages/Visit.Data Hub Activity → shows how people aretalking about and engaging a site content onsocial networks; how and where they sharedand what people said.Landing Pages → shows shared URLsengagement.Trackbacks → shows which sites are linkingto a content.

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Social Reports

Conversions → allows to quantify the valueof Social; the total number of conversions, themonetary value of conversions.Plugins → shows which social buttons(Google “+1” and Facebook “Like”) are beingclicked and for which content.Visitor Flow → shows the initial paths thatvisitors from social networks took through asite, then whether they continued on to otherparts of the site or whether they exited.

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References

1. Analytics Usage Statistics,http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics

2. Google Analytics Usage Statistics, http://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Google-Analytics

3. Capturing The Value Of Social Media Using GoogleAnalytics, http://analytics.blogspot.co.at/2012/03/capturing-value-of-social-media-using.html

4. Social Data, https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/social-data-overview

5. About Social Analytics, https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1683971?hl=en

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