Social Media Analytics – All That You Need to Know

We’ve all heard why social media marketing is easily measurable and that you can track down the outcomes of each campaign without hassle. And this has always been one of the top factors in making social media marketing different and better than traditional marketing.

But do you wonder why social media analytics are so important and talked about and how you can best make use of them to grow a business?

As business owners or even social media marketers – these questions pop up in our minds. And the good news is – we’ve covered that all to ease your hassle.

This blog post talks at length about what is social media analytics and why they are important.

We have also described a list of incredible tools that can help you make the best use of social media analytics in taking your business to some incredible heights!

Dive in to burst your curiosity! 

What Is Social Media Analytics?

Social Media Analytics can be referred to as a process of examining the data gathered from any social media campaign you might have run and using that in a manner to enhance customer experience and uplift your business.

The data gathered for the examination can include everything ranging from the engagement you gained from the audience to the conversations that happened and the overall customer and audience behaviour towards your shared content.

It involves determining how your brand’s social activities have been influencing the target audience and helps determine the sweet spots for your brand as well as the gaps that can be filled to further enhance the customer experience.

Businesses that are customer-centric and aim to improve customer experience can make the best use of social media analytics.

A deep-rooted analysis of your social media can help brands take an in-depth view of how customers feel and think about the brand and its products/services.

Additionally, it also helps determine areas that you might not be focusing upon as a brand but your customers are sceptical about. So, you can further work on improving and enhancing your brand perspective as well as the products/services you offer.

An important factor to consider here is that – most people focus on social media analytics from the numbers perspective. For all the campaigns and strategies executed, marketing professionals look at prominent social media metrics such as follower counts, conversion rates, and impressions.

The truth is – while all these numbers are important, there’s a lot more to these analytics which we shall be focusing upon as social media professionals.

An ideal way to look at these analytics is to determine why certain numbers were attained and why certain were not attained – for which it is highly significant to involve in social listening, read and analyse the engagement patterns of your customers, and seek out their views of your brand from them.

Why Does A Business Need Social Media Analysis? 

While social media analytics is mainly focused on measuring the major metrics and KPIs, a social media analysis is much more than that.

It covers a very extensive area which can be inclusive of everything from an in-depth analysis of why a particular post on Facebook has outperformed your brand and why a particular Instagram or Twitter hashtag has grasped all the rightful attention to why a specific video hasn’t gained the right views and so on.

It is basically a thorough analysis of your brand’s social media presence which can help determine the views of your customers on the brand – be they negative or positive.

The business landscape has changed a lot over the years and has become majorly customer-centric in recent times.

A business cannot grow in today’s world without gaining the right attention from its audience and building a prestige social media presence, no matter how great the products and services they sell.

It is a necessity for businesses to build an active yet qualitative social media presence to actually reach out to the potential audience.

Since the majority of a brand’s potential audience is available on social media and can be reached out there – it is important for the brands to be active across the different social media platforms.

Now that you understand why social media presence is important for businesses, you might wonder why social media analysis is significant.

The answer is simple – businesses need to be more and more customer-centric to be successful these days. And what could be a better platform for businesses to know what their customers want than social media platforms?

A rightly conducted social media strategy can help you understand how customers perceive your brand, what your strong points are, and what the gaps that need to be filled are.

Apart from the general campaign and strategy analysis, social media can also be utilized to determine the concerns and queries of your customers.

Since social media platforms provide quick and easy communication, your customers can actively interact and openly talk about their queries without hassle.

Insights from such interactions and conversations can definitely be the best means of enhancing your customer experience and tailoring your products and services in much more perfect alignment with what the customers desire.

Social media analytics, in particular, helps you spot the latest trends as well as make predictions for upcoming trends so that you can shape up more enhanced strategies for the future.

And with only 43% of the total businesses having leveraged cross-platform analytics, doing so can definitely earn you a major competitive edge. It can help you stand on top!

Social Media Data vs. Social Media Analytics – Are They Different?

Social media data can be referred to as the information you collect from the different social media channels of your brand.

It can include the number of shares and likes, impressions, clicks, and mentions you might have gathered via your campaigns and strategy.

In contrast, social media analytics is similar to social media intelligence which could be referred to as close monitoring of your social media campaigns.

It can be said to as the method you might be utilized in determining the process of monitoring the data from your social platforms.

Social listening can be defined as the process of closely analyzing consumer behaviour and interaction with your brand, and social media analytics is inclusive of that.

What Features Should An Ideal Social Media Analytics Tool Include? 

While there’s a superb variety of social media analytics tools you can choose from, there are certain elements that you should look for when finding your best solution. They include

Tips to Track down Campaign Performance Using Social Media Analytics Tools

Here’s the list of things you must focus on when using social media analytics tools to better utilize the data and insights gathered from them!

Compile All Relevant Data, Including Social Media Analytics, Operational Data, And More

The first step in using any social media analytics tool is to ensure that it is gathering information from all relevant and accessible sources.

The more comprehensive data you’ll have at hand, the better it will be to conduct an in-depth analysis of your social media presence and make better decisions for future enhancements.

Set Benchmarks

With the help of a standard or benchmark, you can see how you stack up against the competition and determine what areas need the most attention.

These benchmarks are not only for assessing how well your social media campaigns succeed but also for how well they function in terms of making money.

The more accurately and clearly you set the benchmarks for each different social media campaign and strategy, the better you’d be able to measure the outcomes and make optimizations for an improved outlook.

Compile A Report On Social Media Metrics.

If you’ve chosen the right social media analytics tools, compiling a report on your findings should be a breeze.

Having the option of scheduling regular reports, generating one-off reports for targeted campaigns, and gaining real-time insights from a fully customizable dashboard are all great features.

That way, you can maximize the likelihood of drawing actionable conclusions from the data you’ve collected.

And the more actionable your conclusion is, the better efforts you can make for the optimization of your further or even the existing campaigns to drive desired outcomes.

You Should Always Be On The Lookout For Customer Behaviour Patterns And Trends

The report on your social media analytics is an excellent tool for pinpointing the areas where your money will have the most impact. Insights into consumer behaviour and the ability to spot emerging trends should be gleaned from social data.

Your team should be able to follow a customer’s path from your social media channels all the way to the checkout page. An insight into your customers’ behaviour and interaction pattern towards the brand is definitely the best you can get your hands upon for a better enhancement of your business.

Do Everything You Can To Improve Your Social Media Results

Your social media analytics tool should be able to help you take action based on the data it collects and, if possible, automate the tasks associated with taking that action.

You need to do something with the new information, whether that’s enhancing the customer experience on your social channels, making it easier for people to go from social media to your website, or closing the loop on customer problems.

Thus, you should always look for opportunities and gaps in your data that can be explored and filled out respectively.

Make Your Findings Widely Known and Use Them Again And Again

After completing these steps, you’ll need to regularly check in with benchmarks and provide reports to demonstrate your success.

Make sure you can easily share your social media results and replicate your research with the rest of the firm since these patterns may serve as early forecasters of consumer wants and aspirations.

They can really help you further enhance the outlook of your brand as well as customize the products or services you offer in alignment with your customer’s desires.

Top Five Social Media Analytics Tools to Use In 2022 

Now that you know what social media analytics are, why they are significant, and how you can better utilize the data gathered from a social media analytics tool – you must be wondering what the best social media analytics tools to analyze your social presence are. The good news is – we’ve got your back.

1. SocialPilot

Social Pilot is now widely recognized as one of the best social media analytics and marketing platforms. TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Business, Pinterest, Tumblr, and VK are just a few of the platforms supported by this app.

With SocialPilot, keeping tabs on the performance of your social media marketing efforts across all of your accounts is a breeze.

There are other metrics that may be monitored, including content popularity, audience size, demographics, and influencers.

SocialPilot is a social media management tool that lets users schedule posts, run ads, and compile analytics. With SocialPilot, you can organize your digital efforts in one place, including all of your content, your schedule, and your social media analytics.

By eliminating the need for a human setting, SocialPilot’s automated data collection and analytics features make it a great tool for managing many accounts.

Moreover, the functionality of the tool is constantly improved, allowing users to use the full potential of the platform.

Take the newest reel uploading and analytics feature as an example. Every one of these features is fantastic for the social media marketer who is always on the go.

SocialPilot is a versatile tool for social media analytics and reporting, in addition to scheduling and publishing, since it serves a broad range of users, from novices to intermediate experts to experienced users.

Analysing your Google Business Profile, as well as your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram profiles, is a breeze with SocialPilot.

2. Brand24

Perhaps you haven’t heard of the company Brand24, which is a shame since they provide one of the best social media monitoring tools out there.

Like the other tools on our list, there is a commercial version with a free trial period of 2 weeks. You may test the waters and learn as much as possible about the service before committing.

With the help of social analytics monitoring, you can collect a wealth of data from a variety of platforms, analyze metrics of engagement and impact, discover popular hashtags, and keep tabs on a wide range of important hashtag statistics.

We highly recommend you check out Brand24. Their user-friendliness and basic design will make them a popular option.

Brand24 compiles and analyses all online mentions of a certain term, product, or brand name. It lists the places your term has been discussed, the percentage of positive to negative opinions about it, the most common places the phrase has been used, and related keywords.

3. Sprout Social

Marketers wishing to invest in a social media analytics software solution that works across many channels would do well to consider Sprout Social.

Sprout Social is a robust analytics platform that covers a wide range of social media outlets, from Facebook and Instagram to Twitter and YouTube as well as Pinterest and LinkedIn.

With this platform, you can measure social interaction via metrics like impressions, clicks, views, and follows and generate reports in both pre-designed and bespoke formats.

Users may also follow trends based on hashtags and conduct in-depth analyses of their competitors. In this way, marketers may compare their social media performance to that of their competitors.

Sprout Social goes beyond these fundamentals by additionally providing a sophisticated social listening platform.

User demographics, social influencers, social trend analysis, and a viral content index are just some of the data that may be gleaned from this tool.

Pricing for Sprout Social begins at $99 per user per month and increases to $249 per user per month, depending on the features chosen.

4. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is an analytics and management platform for social media that facilitate the strategic development of content, the expansion of audience reach, and the generation of measurable business outcomes.

Hootsuite is a social media management dashboard that allows you to publish in advance, respond to comments and mentions, and analyze your reach and engagement on every major network.

The user-friendliness of Hootsuite’s interface is one of its finest qualities. Hootsuite may be used with any social media site, including Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Pinterest, and YouTube.

No matter how many social media sites you advertise on, you can access all of your data in one convenient place. All of these metrics are shown live on the dashboard for your perusal.

Hootsuite allows you to track your progress and provide in-depth reports to demonstrate the value of your social media marketing to your company’s customers, management, and other stakeholders. Choose from over two hundred metrics, then export your report in PowerPoint, PDF, or Excel format.

If you use Hootsuite Analytics, you may get suggestions for when you should publish to Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn based on your specific activity. It analyses your own social media data and suggests the best times to publish.

5. Zoho Social

In order to streamline your business’s operations, you may rely on Zoho’s innovative and high-tech software suite, which has customer relationship management (CRM), collaboration, and other software-as-a-service (SaaS) options.

Zoho Social is where you can analyse your social media following and their engagement with your brand.

You may monitor many channels at once from a centralized control panel and engage in conversation in real time. Each individual post’s reach and level of interaction may be examined in more detail.

Some of the best features include – 

• Generate digestible reports in a plethora of pre-defined categories based on the characteristics of your followers, influencers, or contacts.

• Think about the content formats that your contacts are using and how they compare to the ones you create.

• Examine the follower count and overall audience count for each post separately.

Wrapping Up

Social media analytics is definitely the most important aspect for any marketer. Whether you’re running a small business or an enterprise, maintaining a strong social media presence has become the need of the time.

And given today’s business landscape which is more and more customer-centric – it has become highly significant for businesses to keep track of their customers’ perceptions of themselves and how they feel about the products and services offered. 

There are a ton of analytics tools available that can help you keep track of the performance of your campaigns and derive outcomes that can be useful in the further enhancement and improvement of your brand’s perception. Social media managers use tools like google analytics to tailor their social media efforts for better results.

The market for analytics tools is widespread, but you should always be very mindful when picking the right tool.

It should have all the adequate features and functionalities that can help you dive deep into your social media platforms, your engagement with the customers, and the overall interactions so as to get an incredible overview of the position. 

Once you’ve picked the right social media analytics tool, you must also input all the efforts and expertise into utilizing the features it offers and derive data that can help build insightful social media campaigns and uplift the presence of your brand.