Definition:
To determine the effectiveness of a website, social media posts, and social media campaigns you will need to utilize analytics. Analytics measures what happens on the website and how social media platforms and posts are performing.
- What it is: Social Media and Website Analytics is the methodology to create metrics for measuring the effectiveness of social media and website performance. The analytics can be very powerful and very detailed.
- What does it do: The analytics allows you to measure whether or not your website or social media campaign are achieving the desired results. It can also create the metrics and information necessary to calculate a return on investment
Uses:
- How is it used: The metrics are used to determine if you are achieving the results you desire. Some of the many different applications include:
- Determine and compare the performance of one post versus another
- Allow you to compare the performance of different types of content on a single platform
- Allow you to compare similar content performance on different social media platforms
- Compare how the respondents from different social media platforms act on the website. e.g. Do people who click through on one platform have a different sales conversion rate than other platforms.
- Where: Analytic programs can be used on most websites and social media platforms. Google is the most common analytics program and has a free version. Adobe and Google 360 are two of the most common paid analytics programs. Each Social Media platform has built-in analytics that the owner of the account can use.
- Why: Without analytics measurements, you are flying blind to your website and social media programs. You need the analytics to make improvements and leverage what is going well.
Limitations:
- Where it shouldn't be used: Analytics are used widely, and I can not think of a situation where you would not want to use them.
- Any restrictions: The free programs are valuable, and most social media platforms have built-in analytics. So there may not be a need for paid analytics beyond the free Google and the built-in analytics for each social media platform.
- Warnings: As with any statistical information, be careful not to misuse the information in drawing conclusions that are not supported by the data.
Step-by-step process:
- Gathering data
- I will not try to provide simplistic direction in this document but encourage you to view the video demonstrations and the links below in this section, and the additional resources to learn more about the details of using analytical tools.
- Utilize the social media analytical metrics tools within the social media platform to gather your initial metrics
- Utilize free Google Analytics to gather metrics for your website and social media platforms
- Utilize paid services if you feel you need additional analytical metrics (Google 360, Adobe, HootSuite Analytics, etc.)
- Analysis of data
- Analyze the data based on the goals you established for your website and social media
- Track the patterns of the metrics to look for trends and the impact of decisions you make in your marketing program
- Determine the drivers of effectiveness and efficiency by observing what actions help you move towards your goals
- Interpretation of results
- As you see which types of content and activities and messages have the most impact on your analytic metrics you can identify preferred activities and actions to recommend in the future
- Presentation of results
- There are many graphical representations in the analytical tools that are excellent for the presentation of the findings
- Be sure to show comparisons to highlight the impact of choices and decisions around your website and platforms
Below are links to Google analytics and to the analytic sites within some of the social media platforms.
Google Analytical SolutionsLinks to an external site.
Facebook AnalyticsLinks to an external site.
Twitter Analytics​ (X) measure effectiveness (See section 1 topic 2)
Links to an external site.
Pinterest Analytics
Template for capturing data:
No template is provided as each tool, and the analytical source has its own templates.
Output representation and recommendations:
Each analytical tool has its own presentation recommendations.
