How Do You Analyze Social Media?

How do you know whether your social media marketing efforts are working? These seven ways to analyze your social media marketing efforts will help you understand what is working, what is not working, and what needs to change.

1. Engagement

Are your followers responding to your social media shares with comments of their own? How many comments do you get on average for each post? Which post has the most comments ever? What happens if you go off topic? What happens when you stay on topic? These questions can be answered with the analytics in your social media platform dashboard.

2. Likes

When you post something what is the response? Do people like your post or love it, or dislike it? Does it make them happy or angry? Looking at the likes on each comment and how they grow for your overall page is a good way to know whether you’re connecting with the right people.

3. Shares

What percentage of your posts are shared? Do you ask people to share? When posts are shared at a high rate, it’s a good indicator that you’re connecting with your audience. When no one shares a post, it’s either because it’s not really that earth-shattering or they don’t think about it, so make sure you ask people to share.

4. Growth

It’s easy to tell if you’re growing or not by the number of likes you get on your page. If you can drill down the analytics to find out where the new people came from, that will make your efforts much more effective since you can repeat what works and stop doing what’s not working.

5. Reach

Often, especially when you boost a post, your reach (meaning how many people see the post) is an important indicator of the effectiveness of your post. For example, if it reaches 1000 people but no one responds, likes, or comments, the content might not be the right content for your audience.

6. Clicks

How many people click through to your landing page versus how many people see it is also a great indicator of whether you’re hitting the mark with your audience yet. If you’re getting lots of clicks and no conversions, maybe the landing page isn’t quite right compared to the information that causes them to click through.

7. Mentions

Who is talking about you, what are they saying, and where are they saying it? Social media is a great way to check the barometer regarding the health of your business and the views others have of your business. You can set up a Google Alert to let you know if someone says something about your niche, industry, or even your name.

Every social media platform has its own way of showing you their analytics, but each has good analytics that can show most of what is mentioned here without having to buy anything special. That’s one of the many things that makes social media marketing so effective.