Social Media Analytics

My first goal in using social media analytics is to identify trends in engagement. I want to know what types of content are getting the most engagement, as well as what platforms are reaching the largest audience. I want to track growth of followers and answer the questions of who am I reaching, how many people am I reaching, and am I establishing myself as an authority on my topic.

I will use a few different analytical tools for my content. Since part of my content is a blog, I will be using Google Analytics. Google Analytics provides great information on where traffic is coming from, when users are accessing my content and how much traffic my website is seeing. The other analytics I will use will be the in-app analytics for Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. These will give me specific data for my content on each of those social media channels.

From Google Analytics I will specifically be analyzing what channels referrals are coming from. I will also analyze the days and times that I am getting the most traffic. The last important piece of data I will analyze is bounce rate. This is how long users stay on a particular page before leaving, and provides a big clue on how engaging content is.

From Facebook Analytics I will analyze likes and shares, as these are ways of directly seeing how much engagement I am receiving. I will also analyze impressions to see how many times my content is being viewed. From Twitter Analytics I will be analyzing follower growth to see how large my audience is. I will also analyze retweets to see if my content is reaching beyond my followers. Since Instagram hasn’t fully developed their analytics yet, I will analyze likes and number of followers. This will allow me to see my reach on that platform.

I will apply this data to determine if I have met my goals through a series of steps on each platform.

On WordPress I will look at my Google Analytics data to develop an SEO strategy. I will first see what days and times I am getting the most traffic and make sure to post regularly during those times. I will be able to analyze what key words are getting organic traffic, and I will make sure to emphasize those key words in my SEO strategy. I may make sure those words are in the titles of blog posts, or occur more frequently within my posts. Finally, I will look at bounce rate and see if my material is engaging readers enough to keep them on my page.

Similarly on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter I will look at a combination of follower growth and audience engagement. I will know that my goals have been met here when I see an overall growth in numbers of followers. I will also be looking for increased engagement over time with my content. This will look like an increase in average likes, shares and retweets that my content receives.

When I see an overall growth among all of these metrics, I will know that my objectives of growing an audience and establishing myself as an authority in the field have been met.