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“If you can measure it, you can improve it” – that’s why Social Media Analytics are so important

The great advantage of Social Media over Traditional Marketing is virtually everything is trackable and measurable

So why are so many small businesses not getting the results they want from Social Media, if the data is readily available to them for free?

  • It’s not lack of data – with all due respect analysing your Social Media Marketing isn’t a 20 year analysis
  • It’s not lack of time – all the tools I’m going to talk below about will give you an good overview in 2-5 minutes
  • It’s not lack of knowledge – all of the below tools are talked about at virtually every networking group / Social Media talk around the country

The real possibility is perhaps lack of action. Either lack of action in looking at analytics or lack of action after looking at the analytics.

Let’s take a look at what’s out there

Google Analytics
GOOGLE ANALYTICS

Driving traffic from Social Media to your website will often be one of the KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) for Social Media that you seek to measure

Your website is your home. It’s where you host your blog. It’s where your testimonials are. It’s where your potential customers can find out more about you

Without checking your google analytics you won’t know how your website is performing, whether search engines or social media is driving the most traffic, which of the social media channels is driving the most traffic and which pages are viewed the most

Your website could be the most expensive vanity brochure you’ve ever paid for … or … it could be the best investment you’ve ever made

Any good web designer should add google analytics to your website so if you don’t have the logins email your web designer and ask for them and then do the task below

Task:
1. Log on to http://www.google.com/analytics
2. Follow the sequence on the left hand menu bar – Acquisition > All Traffic > Channels
3. Look which position Social is out of Direct / Organic / Referral / Social – is it where you expected for your time devoted to Social Media?
4. Then click on Social and see which channel is performing best for you

Are the results what you expected? Email us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk for help

Facebook LOGO
FACEBOOK INSIGHTS

As personal users we give something huge away for using Facebook for free – our privacy

Facebook literally knows every single thing about you as we voluntary give that information away for free when we set up our profile

Our age, location, family members are just the start of it. Where we drink, eat, holiday are all tracked by the activity we do on Facebook. Our interests from our favourite musicians, sports teams, TV shows and personalities are given away by the Facebook pages we like

It’s all a bit scary for the human race

But it fantastic for data and business usage when looking at your facebook insights and facebook advertising

Facebook Insights will tell you the demographics (Age / Gender / Location) of your audience; Your Facebook Reach, Engagement Levels; Which Facebook Posts are performing best; How You Compare To Your Competitors

It’s the latter i’m going to focus on for the Facebook Task

Task:
1. Log on www.facebook.com on your desktop / laptop and visit your page
2. Click insights towards the left of the page
3. Scroll down to Pages To Watch
4. Click Add Pages
5. Add 5-10 of your competitors Facebook pages (they won’t be notified you are watching them)
6. Look at the Total Page Likes / Growth From Last Week / Posts This Week / Engagement This Week

How do you compare to your competitors in each area above? Are your competitors doing better or worse than you?

Email us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk for help

Twitter Analytics
TWITTER ANALYTICS

Last year our Twitter Impressions were over 500,000 every single month

Impressions: Times a user is served a Tweet in timeline or search results

I’m not putting that out to boast – I’m putting that out there to show you what is possible with hard work and determination

Twitter Impressions are not the only metric to take note of on twitter, but they’re an important one

If people don’t see your tweets – they can’t engage (reply / retweet / like / click on a link / call a phone number / email you) with them

On the monthly analysis Twitter Analytics also show you Top Tweet, Top Mention, Top Follower, Top Media Tweet

And Number Of Tweets, Tweet Impressions, Profile Visits, Mentions, New Followers

Task:
1. Log into your Twitter account on Desktop / Laptop
2. Either click your menu on the left and select analytics or go to http://analytics.twitter.com
3. Scroll back through the last 12 months – write down which month has the Top Number Of Tweets, Tweet Impressions, Profile Visits, Mentions, New Followers
4. Check your financials – does the activity translate to more sales on these specific months

Does the work and effort you put in on Twitter translate to sales? Or are they vanity metrics?

Email us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk for help

Instagram For Business
INSTAGRAM INSIGHTS
Our most popular blog post last year was about Instagram For Business and importantly Instagram Insights

Instagram themselves describe the core benefit as “Business Tools give you the ability to stand out, learn more about your followers and reach more customers on Instagram”

The missing link until Instagram for Business came out was that there were no real stats on how well your instagram campaigns were doing

If you’re familiar with Facebook Insights you’ll be familiar with Instagram Insights

You can find out
* Number of impressions that week = the total number of times your posts have been seen
* Reach that week – the number of unique accounts that have your posts
* Number of clicks to your website that week

* Top Posts
* Engagement on each post

Similar to Facebook there’s a huge amount of date on your audience as well – check out the full blog here on Instagram Insights https://www.altrinchamhq.co.uk/instagram-for-business-how-to-activate-your-business-profile-and-why/

Task:
1. Read the Instagram For Business blog here – https://www.altrinchamhq.co.uk/instagram-for-business-how-to-activate-your-business-profile-and-why/
2. Read the debate about whether you should upgrade to instagram for business here https://www.altrinchamhq.co.uk/most-popular-marketing-blogs-of-2016-on-altrincham-hq/
3. Decide whether you want to upgrade and start measuring if so

Email us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk for help

Shop Worker
ASK YOUR CUSTOMERS

Quite often when a potential customer calls us or emails they will tell us how they heard about us

If they don’t 90% of the time we ask them

And when they book with us, we have a very simply excel spreadsheet which tracks the various marketing channels we use

We know what is working marketing wise for us because it’s tracked down to the individual transactions and £££s

Most businesses don’t take time to track what is working for them and therefore under or over estimate the impact of Social Media on their business

For B2C businesses – customers don’t walk through your shop / bar / restaurants door with a huge arrow over their head that says “I came from Twitter”. It’s possible they did and you simply didn’t ask them

Task
1. Ask the next 30 people that make contact with your business how they heard about you
2. Compile a simple tick chart of all the answers

Are there any patterns? Does Social Media get mentioned? Which channels?

Keep repeating this

Email us on alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk for help

NEED HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING – CHAT TO US
Chat to about Social Media for YOUR business so we can better understand YOU and what will grow your business

We can only find out what is unique to your business by chatting to you

Look at our Social Media Training and Social Media Management services

Or

Please call Alex on 07806774279 or email alex@altrinchamhq.co.uk

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Alex McCann

Author Alex McCann

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