{/*
*/}

How To Track Social Media Analytics (In 6 Easy Steps)

How To Track Social Media Analytics (In 6 Easy Steps)

Tracking social media analytics doesn’t have to be a chore. With the right tools and a clear plan, you can uncover valuable insights that drive your strategy forward.

Image posts get 6x more engagement than text posts, but many social media accounts have no idea. If engagement feels wildly unpredictable from post to post, it’s a sign your social media analysis needs work. Tracking social media analytics can dramatically improve average content engagement while increasing the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

In this article, we’ll cover 6 simple steps to help you analyze key metrics, better understand your audience, and improve the ROI of all your social media campaigns.  Let’s get started.

Key Takeaways

  1. Social media analytics give you an aggregate view of your audience’s behavior. By understanding what resonates with them, you can tailor your content to increase engagement and grow your brand effectively.
  2. Defining clear business objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) is crucial. They help you measure success and adjust your strategies to achieve your goals.
  3. Consistent tracking and analyzing your social media data allow you to make informed decisions. Regular monitoring helps you respond quickly to changes and continuously improve your social media strategy.

In 2024, social media is no longer a platform for just personal communication but the very cornerstone of business strategy. It has become a powerhouse for audience engagement, brand awareness, and business growth. 

Mastering social media analytics involves six simple steps: setting up analytics tools, defining goals and KPIs, collecting relevant data, creating custom reports, analyzing historical data, and visualizing that data. Later, we will break down each of these steps into actionable items.

What Is Social Media Analytics and Why Is It Important?

Have you ever wondered why some posts get instant attention, and others seem destined for obscurity? Social media analytics can help you identify these seemingly hidden factors. 

Social media analytics is the process of collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data from social media platforms to understand and boost your online presence. It provides insights into audience behavior, engagement patterns, and the overall effectiveness of your social media strategies. Assuming you’re following the rules of social media, analyzing your data is the next important step.

So, why is this important? 

Well, for starters, it helps you answer critical questions: Which posts drive the most engagement? What times are your followers most active? How are people talking about your brand?

Additionally, social media analytics is also important as it can help you to:

  • Fine-tune your content: Understand what resonates with your audience and tailor your content accordingly.
  • Improve your brand strategy: Benchmark your performance against competitors and identify areas for improvement.
  • Make data-driven decisions: Gauge customer sentiment and responses to your social media efforts to make strategic choices.
  • Enhance the customer experience: Analyse customer reviews and feedback to identify areas for product improvement and address negative comments.

The bottom line is social media analytics allows you to make informed decisions, improve your content, and enhance your overall social media strategy. Essentially guiding your efforts, so they aren’t going to waste.

So, how do we actually translate all this data into actionable strategies?

There are four key types of social media analytics: Descriptive, Diagnostic, Predictive, and Prescriptive. Each offers a unique perspective on your data, giving you a well-rounded understanding of your social media performance.

  1. Descriptive Analytics tells you what happened by gathering and describing data through reports, visualizations, and clusters. It helps you understand well-defined business problems or opportunities.

  1. Diagnostic Analytics explains why things happen by accessing social media data like follower numbers, page views, reviews, and sentiment to identify trends and consumer preferences.

  1. Predictive Analytics gives you a glimpse of the future by forecasting trends based on past data. For example, a clothing store can use social media trends to predict a surge in raincoat demand before a music festival.

  1. Prescriptive Analytics advises on what to do next by providing recommendations to optimize your strategy. Whether it’s handling social media crises or streamlining sales processes based on customer habits, prescriptive analytics guide your next steps.

Overall, these social media analytics work together to give you a complete picture of your social media performance and help you achieve your social media goals.

Next, we will explore the best social media analytic tools.

What Are The Best Social Media Analytics Tools?

Choosing the right social media analytics tool is essential for effectively tracking and improving your social media performance.

Here are five top-notch social media analytics tools to consider:

  1. Hootsuite is great for scheduling and tracking all in one place. Hootsuite's dashboard allows you to manage multiple social media accounts, monitor keywords, and measure the success of your campaigns with comprehensive analytics reports.

  1. Sprout Social offers detailed analytics and user-friendly reports that tell you about audience demographics, engagement metrics, and content performance.

  1. BuzzSumo is ideal for content analysis and understanding what’s trending in your niche. With BuzzSumo, you can track backlinks, evaluate competitors, and discover key influencers to amplify your content reach.

  1. Buffer simplifies the scheduling process of scheduling posts across various social media platforms. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to plan and assess your social media strategy, helping you refine your posting schedule for maximum engagement.

  1. Brandwatch excels in social listening and advanced analytics. It’s like having a spy network, gathering intelligence on what people say about your brand across the web.

When selecting a tool, think about your business goals. Ask yourself, are you aiming for higher engagement, better content, or more traffic to your website? 

Match the tool’s strengths to your objectives to get the most value from your social media analytics tool.

Step #1: Setting Up Social Analytics Tools

First things first, choose your platform wisely. Each social media site has its own analytics dashboard. Get familiar with your chosen platform's features, whether it’s Facebook Insights or Pinterest Analytics. Next, consider a third-party tool for more in-depth data.

Let’s walk through setting up Hootsuite. 

A tip: If you're curious about how the tools work, consider signing up for a free trial. This way, you can access all the features without any initial cost. 

Source: Hootsuite 

Then, connect your social media accounts. 

Source: LinkedIn 

Next, customize your dashboard by adding streams for each account. 

Source: Hootsuite 

This way, you can monitor everything from one place. Easy peasy, right?

Step #2: Define Goals and Key Performance Indicators

Without clear goals, tracking analytics is useless. What do you want to achieve? More followers, better engagement, or increased website traffic? Define your business objectives first.

Next, identify your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These metrics will show you if you’re hitting your targets. For instance, if your goal is to boost engagement, your KPIs might be likes, comments, and shares. Write them down so you always have a clear target in mind.

Think of KPIs as your North Star, guiding your efforts. Are you looking to increase brand awareness? Focus on metrics like reach and impressions. Looking to drive more traffic to your website? Track clicks and referral traffic. Each goal has specific KPIs that will help you measure success.

Selecting KPI’s largely depends on your business goals, however, here are some popular KPIs you can use to inspire your own.

  1. Impressions: how many times a post was displayed — an especially important metric for new accounts to audience size.
  2. Engagement Rate:  any user interaction with content, including likes, comments, and shares.  Generally important to see if your content is resonating with your audience.
  3. Follower Growth: tracks increase in account followers to provide a more generalized picture of your social media efforts.
  4. Click-Through Rate (CTR): Measures the percentage of people that click on a link in a post or bio. We love this metric because it indicates your social media efforts are creating buy-ready traffic for your site.
  5. Reach: the estimated number of users who have had contact with one of your posts. Although sometimes vague, it can help understand how ready users are to share your content and overall virality.

Avoid Vanity Metrics

When choosing your KPIs, it’s critical that you keep your business objectives at the forefront.  Creating posts with tremendous engagement rates that don’t yield customers is a typical symptom of choosing vanity metrics.

Simply put, unless you’re Coca-Cola, you don’t need to engage with everyone.  Most companies are better served by selecting KPIs that reflect building relationships with their ideal customers. Focusing on KPIs that nurture these relationships will always yield a better return on your marketing efforts.

Step #3: Collect Social Media Analytics Data

Now, it’s time to gather your data. Collect information relevant to your goals. Use your platform’s analytics to pull data on reach, engagement, and audience demographics. Keep it organized – a messy dataset is no one’s friend.

Consider integrating social listening tools like Brandwatch. They help you understand the broader conversation about your brand, giving context to your numbers. This way, you’re not just seeing the what but also the why behind the data.

Data collection is an ongoing process. Regularly check your analytics dashboards and update your datasets. By maintaining a steady data flow, you can track trends over time and spot changes quickly.

Step #4: Create Custom Reports

Creating reports is where you turn data into insights. Start with a simple spreadsheet. Input your collected data and break it down by key metrics. This step involves visualizing your data, making it easier to spot trends and form a hypothesis.

Source: webfix 

Use built-in analytics tools to generate reports. For example, Facebook Insights can create reports that show you how each post performed. Google Analytics can help you understand how social media traffic behaves on your website.

When creating these reports, consider them records of your social media efforts. They highlight what’s working and what needs improvement. A well-prepared report is indispensable to developing your future content strategy.

Step #5: Analyze Historical Data

Historical data is a goldmine. Look at your past performance to see what’s changed over time. Which metrics have decreased? What content types performed best?

Form an action plan based on these insights. If engagement is down, maybe it’s time to try new content formats. Analyzing historical data helps you learn from the past and improve future strategies.

If your business goals are not being served by your social media efforts, this step can set you back on the right course.  Ensuring you’ve diligently collected the right data will ensure your visualizations are guiding you correctly.

Step #6: Visualise Social Media Analytics Reports

Graphs, charts, and other visuals can turn complex data into easily digestible insights. Use free tools like this scatter plot maker to highlight trends and correlations. Make sure your visuals are straightforward and emphasize your chosen KPIs.

Source: Chartexpo

This approach not only makes your data more accessible but also helps communicate your findings effectively to stakeholders, guiding strategic decisions.  Key things to look for are steady growth in your KPIs and any unexpected future events you should anticipate.

How Often Should You Track Social Media Analytics?

Consistency is key. Regular monitoring helps you stay on top of trends and respond quickly to changes. Depending on your objectives and the metrics you're monitoring, you might check your analytics weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. 

A weekly review can be helpful for daily updates on engagement and growth. A monthly analysis might suit strategic insights, such as campaign effectiveness. 

Consistent tracking can help you identify trends, respond to changes quickly, and continuously refine your social media approach for better results.

Conclusion

Tracking social media analytics doesn’t have to be a chore. You can uncover valuable insights that drive your strategy forward with the right tools and a clear plan.  For best results, make sure to track your social media analytics consistently.

Social media analytics is all about understanding your audience and improving content quality, all of which will dramatically increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. 

Article by Matthew Jensen

This post was submitted by a TNS experts. Check out our Contributor page for details about how you can share your ideas on digital marketing, SEO, social media, growth hacking and content marketing with our audience.

// // //