When it comes to social media marketing, it's easy to get caught up in the numbers game. I’m fairly confident in saying that this is something that plagues us all at least once in our journey to growing our businesses online. How many followers do you have? How many likes did your latest post get? How many people viewed your story?
While these metrics can certainly be important, you are missing out on their greatest benefit if you don't actually do anything with them! On their own, they do not give you a complete picture of how your social media efforts are impacting your business, which is - let’s face it - the most important part. That's where studying your analytics comes in.
Sound scary, and far too technical for someone who doesn’t even want to be on social media in the first place?
That’s ok, and you are not alone! But regardless of how we feel, today we’re going to put on our big kid pants and dive a little deeper into the world of analytics; specifically focusing on how you can utilise them to make better decisions on the content you post for your small business. Saving you time and effort in the long run. As always, we will finish with an actionable task that you can implement right away to help get you on the right track with your content!
So, what are analytics?
Analytics are like the secret weapon for tracking your social media growth. They allow you to see behind the curtain and understand how your social media campaigns are performing. A set of numbers that measure different factors, and can help you see which types of content are resonating with your audience, which posts are reaching the most people, and even track how many people are clicking on your links and making a purchase.
Instead of just guessing what's working and what's not, analytics give you hard data to make informed decisions about your social media strategy. This is game changing for small businesses, and is essential if you feel like you are a sitting duck with your social media efforts. It's like having a crystal ball for your social media growth.
By using analytics, you can make data-driven decisions to optimise your social media strategy and ultimately drive more growth for your business.
Great! We’ve got an idea of what analytics are now, and you’ve been told how beneficial they can be for your business… but how exactly do they work? What should you be looking for? How can you actually USE them to make those informed decisions for future content?
I’ve got you covered!
In an effort to not overwhelm you, we’re only going to focus on 3 metrics in today’s blog: Engagement, Reach and CTR. We will cover more important metrics in future blog entries, but for now: let’s jump into the basics and get comfy with your soon-to-be best friends.
ENGAGEMENT. One of the most important analytics to track is engagement. Engagement refers to the interactions that people have with your social media content, such as likes, comments, shares, and clicks. By monitoring engagement metrics, you can see which types of content are resonating with your audience and which ones are falling flat. This can help you make better decisions about what to post in the future.
For example, if a small clothing store posts a photo of a new dress and it receives a lot of likes and comments, it's a good indication that the dress is popular with the audience. The small business can then use this information to create more posts featuring similar dresses or styles.
REACH. Another key metric to track is reach. Reach refers to the number of people who have seen your content. This can include people who have seen your post on their newsfeed, as well as people who have seen it through shares and retweets. By tracking reach, you can see which types of content are reaching the most people and which are getting lost in the noise. This can help you make decisions about how to optimise your content for maximum visibility.
For example, if you notice that a certain type of post, like a funny meme, is reaching a lot more people than your other posts, you might want to create more memes in the future.
CTR. In addition to engagement and reach, you'll also want to track metrics like click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate. CTR refers to the percentage of people who click on a link in your post, while conversion rate refers to the percentage of people who take a desired action, such as making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter. By monitoring these metrics, you can see how effectively your social media campaigns are driving leads and sales.
An example of how you can use CTR analytics: if you are promoting a new product and posts a link to where your audience can find it on your website, you can use CTR analytics to see how many people are actually clicking on that link. If the CTR is low, it may indicate that the post isn't catching people's attention or that the product isn't quite what your audience is looking for.
In this case, you can try experimenting with different types of content to promote the product, such as a video or a customer testimonial. You can also try to make the post more engaging by adding a call-to-action or by asking a question. By testing different strategies and analysing the results, you can optimise your content to increase the CTR and ultimately drive more sales for your products.
Where can you find these analytics?
To track all of these metrics, you can use built-in analytics tools on most platforms, or use third-party tools like Hootsuite or Google Analytics. You don’t need any fancy software though, you just need to keep an open mind and put an honest effort into learning how to understand it. As with anything, it’s important to remember that this may not come naturally right away, and that is OK. You didn’t learn how to spell Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious the first time you heard it… it took time. This will take time too, and is worth the mental investment. Your content will be stronger because of it!
In conclusion, analytics play a vital role in tracking social media growth, by providing valuable insights into the performance of your social media campaigns and audience demographics. By regularly monitoring and analysing your data, you can make data-driven decisions to optimise your social media strategy and ultimately drive more growth for your business.
Actionable task:
Set up analytics on your social media accounts: If you haven't already, set up analytics on your social media accounts so you can start tracking engagement, reach and CTR. Make a note of your average metrics and put them somewhere you will see them often, somewhere near your work space is a great place for this. This will remind you of what your homework is for the next part of this actionable task:
To check in 2-3 times and get more familiar with what your analytics look like on past posts, and brainstorm ideas on how you can replicate posts that have performed well!
At the end of the week: use your research to create a list of 5 - 10 new post ideas that you can implement in the future.
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