Why Your Business Needs to Pay Attention to Its Social Media Analytics, from Day One

By Paul Herrera On Dec 5, 2018

Social media analytics are more important than most businesses realize. Whether you’re a recently launched startup, or an established company with over 1,000 employees, overlooking this important analytics can mean missing out on crucial insights into the success of your campaigns, and what your target audience is really interested in seeing.

Data that comes from analyzing your content’s performance and reach is integral to knowing how to maintain customer engagement, and how to strategize to expand it further. Here are the top 3 reasons your business should be paying close attention to its social media analytics:

Listen Up: You Need to Know What’s Being Said About Your Brand

You wouldn’t stare blankly at a complaining customer physically stood in front of you, or simply turn and walk away from someone giving you great feedback. So, why do the equivalent of this online? Whether it’s highlighting positive customer commentary, mitigating complaints, or simply getting a sense of the conversations going on around your brand, paying attention to what people are saying about you online is crucial in building brand image and maintaining customer loyalty.

Whether your business is yet to formally launch its product, or you’re already achieving international success, you need to be closely tracking analytics. Tracking both indirect and direct social media mentions can uncover a whole host of insights. Taking a look at tweets, comments, and shares of your content at different stages of marketing campaigns and product launches can give you a great sense of how your audience is receiving your content.

And when these conversations are positive, make sure you highlight them in your own channels to help uphold an authentic brand image, show that you’re grateful for the friendly feedback, and make the consumer feel special. Just look at this great example from yogurt brand Chobani, who offered to send a customer a get well note. The more you engage with those giving you great feedback, the more likely they are to stick around. In fact, 62% of millennials said they’re more likely to become a loyal customer if a brand engages with them via social media.

Of course, not all feedback will be positive, especially for big organizations. However, using your social media analytics to identify any negative trends and hone in on feedback on certain campaigns or products can be the difference between a PR disaster and a quick reversal of a misjudged or unintended decision.

It’s no secret that public outcry on social media can be hugely damaging for brands, just look at the United Airlines and Pepsi scandals of 2017. In fact, studies have shown that positive and negative perceptions of brands online are the biggest factor in consumer decisions. However, reacting quickly and appropriately to a blunder, and responding directly to negative comments can help mitigate its effects as much as possible. Responding to customer queries is also essential if you want to keep your loyal customers happy. And don’t be afraid to get creative, just like Spotify did here, creating a custom playlist with a personal message to respond to a user.

You Need to Know What Content Is Falling on Deaf Ears

So, by now, you’ve probably worked out that you can’t social media market to everyone, and you should be posting with a certain audience in mind. It’s all good and well putting out content that you think is preferred by the group you’re targeting, but what if this is actually not the best way to engage them?

You may be thinking that video content on Facebook is your best bet, meanwhile, your desired audience is engaging more with your competitors’ Instagram stories. Or you think you’ve worked out that posting written content to your Twitter feed is going to gain you the most engagement, when in actual fact it’s going over people’s heads, and visual posts would bring much more traction.

Knowing you’re giving your audience what it wants is vital, with 42% of consumers finding irrelevant content the most annoying aspect of brand marketing strategies. For example, you could find out valuable insights such as knowing that Generation Z women like branded video content when it’s authentic and entertaining. Or that millennials (whose annual spending power is expected to hit $1.4 trillion by 2020) place importance on informative, concise, mobile-friendly written content.

That’s why it’s crucial to take a deep look at the performance analytics of the different types of content you’re putting out. Analyzing the quantity and content of mentions, shares, favourites, retweets, likes, and comments help you evaluate and compare different types of content, and can thus inform your social media strategy moving forward.

You Need to Know Who Is Talking About Your Brand

As well as knowing what’s being said, you should also be analyzing exactly who is talking about your brand on social media. Here, taking a quality over quantity approach can be useful. While numbers are certainly important, if there are people with social influence talking about your brand, you need to capitalize on this.

Find out who are these people’s audiences, and the kind of spheres they are operating in. In doing this, you can connect with them through mentions, interviews, or even include them in blog posts, and adapt your content to grab the attention of their audiences too. Instagram and YouTube symbols that have impact can be a great marketing tool and help you gain credibility, which is especially important for businesses just starting out. With Influencer Marketing on the rise, there are few forward-thinking brands that aren’t using it to their advantage.

However, remember that audience size does not automatically relate to influence: Just because someone has thousands of followers doesn’t mean they can persuade them to actually do anything. In fact, micro influencers (influencers with less than 10,000 followers) experience 60% higher engagement rates, and their campaigns are 6.7 times more efficient than their ‘more popular’ counterparts.

With all this being said, it should be clear that if you want your business to have an optimized, targeted, and effective social media marketing strategy, you need to pay close attention to the analytics of your social media performance, and not just skim the metrics. Gaining insights into sentiments around your brand, understanding what content is best and where it should be directed, and connecting with influencers that are part of the conversation are all sure-fire ways to help you build up brand credibility and loyalty, no matter the size of your organization.