It is no longer enough to simply participate on social media: marketers must now be keenly aware of how social media is generating results for their company, how they measure up to the competition, and most importantly, who their online audience is and what exactly they respond to on the different social media platforms. Luckily, data pulled from these platforms can be a veritable gold mine of information about your audience and what kind of results your efforts are garnering.
Here are three types of insights you can glean from studying your results on social media:
Information Marketers Can Get From Social Media Analytics
1. Get to know your audience.
Every social media platform will give you access to demographic information about your audience. It’s important to know how to find and interpret this information, because after all, you can only create targeted content that resonates with people if you know who exactly you are reaching. Though each social site reports this information differently, they all provide access to information ranging from user gender, age, and location to occupation, interests and even household income, giving marketers a prime opportunity to mold content around very specific audiences. Analyze these insights carefully, and then commit to using them to determine your audience on each platform (which should in turn inform your entire social media strategy).
2. Learn what content resonates with your audience
Learning what kind of content your audience responds to is one of the most crucial aspects of successful social media marketing, yet it’s also one that is frequently overlooked. If you aren’t sure what works best for your audience (or if you haven’t checked in recently), know that a quick glance into any platform’s analytics data is all it takes to understand what type of content is performing well. For instance: if a leafy greens grower/shipper sees that content about green smoothies and juices continue to make the list of top three popular posts month after month, they can infer that this type of content intrigues their audience and that they should most likely find new, creative ways to continue elevating similar content. Whatever elements of your brand’s online presence you discover people really enjoy, find ways to leverage it—and be sure to build it into the next month’s content plan!
3. Justify how your social media efforts are benefiting the business
Using analytics to track your progress on social media is important for understanding how well your brand engages your current social audiences and whether you’re on track to meet short- and long-term marketing goals. To help you understand what you’re doing well and where you could improve, commit to regularly measuring (recommend monthly) trends over time for social metrics including follower growth, engagement rates, total reach, website referrals, and impressions. And the value of this information doesn’t just go for your organic efforts, either: analytics are equally important when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of your social media advertising strategy. After all, nobody likes to invest their marketing budget without a reasonable return on that investment, and analytics tools are crucial for determining the approach that will provide the biggest bang for your buck moving forward.
Need additional guidance on measuring—and improving—your brand’s social media performance? We can help: reach out to us directly to schedule a free consult, or learn more about how a social media assessment could elevate your brand.
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