Social media analytics is the process of analyzing information gathered from your social media channels and using it to optimize your campaigns and inform your business strategy. It involves choosing your key performance indicators (KPIs) and reporting on them over time.
Social media analytics is closely related to social media monitoring, which is the process of tracking and gathering the data from your social channels and social media campaigns. You can typically use a single platform to carry out both of these processes and much more, but here we’ll focus on the definition of social media analytics in particular.
Why Do You Need Social Media Analytics?
Data is the foundation of PR and comms strategies, and with the right tools, social media data becomes even more powerful. There are plenty of social media analytics use cases that show just how valuable this data can be.
Tailor Your Content
Social media analytics lets you track which types of content resonate best with your target audience. It tells you what’s working – and what isn’t – with specific demographics. It can even give you information on your audience’s preferences and behavior. You can leverage that data to better tailor the topics of your social media content, when you schedule posts, and how you promote them, to boost engagement and increase ROI.
Respond to Trends
Anything can happen in the fast-paced, ever-changing landscape of social media. PR and comms professionals need to be able to quickly respond to comments, posts, emerging hashtags, feedback and overall trends – especially negative ones. Social media data analysis underpins your ability to monitor brand health across social networks, fine-tune your messaging, and manage crises before they go viral.
Improve Your Products or Services
Improving your products or services is one of the biggest benefits of social media analytics – and one that often flies under the radar. You can analyze customers’ responses to your posts, what they’re posting themselves, and reviews on social media sites to get a clearer picture of how your products are being received. That analysis can provide insights to help you improve your existing products or services and create new ones that consumers will value.
Understand Your Competitors
Social media data analysis doesn’t just apply to your own brand. You can use the same tools to analyze your competitors’ social media activities – not only what they post, but how customers respond. Both negative and positive customer reactions, for example to a new competitor product, can help you improve your own strategy or even uncover a new market you could target.
Optimize Your Results
While PR and comms professionals often focus on managing brand reputation and brand awareness, connecting those efforts back to business priorities is the ultimate goal. Social media analytics can provide detailed insights, reporting, and attribution metrics that you can take to the C-suite with confidence.
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