Social sharing buttons allow for backtracking click statistics. But which metrics should you measure, which ones are relevant for your business?
And which tools apart from the obvious Google Analytics support efficient analysis collection and visualization?
Presentation by Leslie Poston from Magnitude Media, author of Social Media Metrics For Dummies
Via webinar by Awareness Social Marketing Software.
There are 5 general channels that need to be monitored
- Marketing
- Human Resources
- Customer Service
- Sales
- Operations
Key B2B metrics
- Cost per sale
- Customer Lifetime Value
- Database Performance
- Lenght of Sales Cycle
- Conversion Rates
- Lead Generation / Referrals
They help identifying customers that help your bottom line. It’s fine to walk away from clients that don’t contribute properly.
Key B2C Metrics
- Cost per Acquisition
- Bounce Rate
- Abandonment Rate at Checkout
- Conversion Rate
- Click Through Rate
- Deep Page Engagement
- Repeat Visitors
- Use KPIs for Micro Data
They help deciding which A/B testing should be performed, say in the shopping cart process. The conversion funnel across all steps helps identifying problematic screens that lead to abandonment: Do you communicate shipping costs at the beginning or at the end of the process?
Potential customer frustration should be gauged based on click through metrics. Advanced segments in Google Analytics allow for measuring the according metrics.
The click through rate indicates whether you adress the right people at the right time at the right place.
The page engagement indicates the performance of general navigation features and content presentation.
Repeat visitors should be tracked based on relevant segments. Where exactly do visitors return to?
Tools like Google+ Ripples show content propagation in real time. This can be interesting if you have lots of traffic in order to identify relevant influencers.
Bit.ly has statistics included. It helps tracking click behaviour, e.g. in Twitter.
TweetReach also analyses Tweets. EdgeRank Checker is yet another tracking tool.
Pinterest is the new kid on the block. Google Analytics has a hard time analysing their data just yet. Therefore you may use PinReach.com for the time being. Or Pintics or Pinerly or Pinpuff…
MailChimp helps with email newsletters and according analytics. If you want to check them with Google Analytics you’ll have to set up listening events.
Cloudwards put together a list of other cloud based business email services. Hat tip to Jordan McKenna for pointing it out.
Competitive Analytics
- Google Analytics
- Extensions / Plug-ins
- Google Alerts
- Saved Search
- Excel
You can as well use SocialMention for analytics and follow competitors on FourSquare or Yelp if you run a local business.
Chrome offers several plug-ins like Regular Expression Search for monitoring research.
Maximize KPI Tracking
- KPI by industry
- KPI per goal
- KPI per problem to solve
- KPI for demographics
- KPI for finances
KPIs need to support the story of your business. Depending on your industry you will need to come up with the relevant KPIs for your specific services. There are no generic KPIs that will fit every business properly. Email marketers will obviously analyze other KPIs than ecommerce sites do.
The Almighty Spreadsheet
GA Data Grabber adds KPIs from different social networks like Facebook and analytics tools like Google Analytics and fits them into a spreadsheet.
Segmentation is Key
Segmented reports help with drill downs into relevant business information.
- Source
- Location
- Demographic
- Keyword
- Ads
- Mobile
- More
Tracking non-branded traffic to your site can be performed with regular expressions in Google Analytics.
Filter Out IP Adresses
You should filter out your own IP adress. In Google Analytics it’s done via the admin panel.
Whatsmyipadress.com will help you identify your IP adress.
You may also want to filter out the IP of others.
Visitor Flow in Google Analytics
The visitor flow is visualized in realtime. It’s like following your customers on their path through your shop.
It helps identifying relevant segments that should be monitored closely.
Pages with high drop off rates should be analyzed for proper calls to action or usability glitches.
Pay per Click Stats from AdWords should be linked to Google Analytics. This will help analyzing the traffic based on SEM.
Key Goals
Usually you should pursue incremental improvements, e.g. by how many percentages did this or that improve?
That makes the goals measurable and easy to understand.
Sentiment Analysis
Sentiment analysis shows the emotional aftertaste left after an interaction with a brand happened.
Radian6, Custom Scoop, Engagor and many others have automated sentiment analysis for English, some also for other languages. They automatically identify positive and negative conversations about a brand.
Other Performance Indicators
Page load time should be kept as short as possible: It’s good usability and Google honours this with higher rankings.
From the Feltron 2010 Annual Report: Quantified Self metrics published as a book:
Check out more details and all involved tools from Leslie’s book!
With so many social media monitoring and measurement tools available, it can be overwhelming to figure out which tool is right for you when it comes to calculating the success of your social media marketing efforts. This fun and friendly guide helps you determine which tool will serve you best for understanding your online audience.
You’ll learn to sift through all the information available about social media monitoring and metrics so that you can listen to what is being said about your business, read your analytic dashboard, understand what metrics mean for you, calculate your return on investment (ROI), and apply your findings to future social media marketing campaigns.
A leading authority in emerging media, transmedia, brand and business development, Leslie Potson has devoted much of her adult life to social and emerging media and its application to the real world. Her business (Magnitude Media) has been involved with businesses of all shapes and sizes as their emerging media specialist and business growth source.
An experienced writer and bestselling published author, Leslie co-authored Twitter For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))
