Why You Should Include Social Media Analysis In Your Marketing Strategy
For more than two decades now, social media sites have been with us. The first platform, Six Degrees, was developed in 1997 and allowed users to post bulletin board pieces and send messages. Several things have changed since then. Now, it isn’t easy to imagine daily activities without Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.
Besides, new social media sites are emerging daily. Some like TikTok become instantly popular and are taking the world by storm. Soon, we’ll see a spike in marketing campaigns on TikTok. Social media platforms are also a foundation of marketing.
Marketing campaigns, even offline ones, these days include social media involvement. The development of social media channels has presented opportunities for you to reach a wider audience through more interactive and creative marketing campaigns. You can find potential clients on the right platform at the right time through this channel. That’s why it’s crucial to analyze data using online reputation management software to get vital information that can help you make informed decisions.
An online marketing campaign’s success depends on factors such as understanding the needs of your audience and effectively executing the right ideas. But to know the ideas to implement, you need to analyze and interpret data collected from social media accounts.
In this article, you’ll learn some essential things you need to know about social media analysis.
Social Media Analysis Defined
Social media analysis refers to collecting valuable information from social media platforms and using them to make informed marketing decisions. This analysis is crucial because it can help you improve your social media marketing campaign. This marketing makes it unnecessary for you to test campaigns before launching your business. That’s because social media analysis is about analyzing data from previous interactions and posts of your followers.
There are two ways of doing social media analyses. The first one is to monitor your social media accounts and analyze your results, while the second involves analyzing your competitors’ social media presence. This will allow you to understand the ideas that work and those that don’t work in your industry. Social media analysis is vital in creating a successful social media campaign. Through data collected during the analysis, you can run campaigns that’ll target the right audience and reach them at the right time through the right channel. This analysis may be time-consuming, but its benefits outweigh the efforts taken to do it.
How To Conduct Social Media Analysis
As a brand owner, you can collect a lot of data from your social media accounts. Though this can be done manually, using a media monitoring tool can quicken the process. Media monitoring tools collect comments from all your social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, TickTock, Twitch, and Facebook, and analyze them. To know how many times you’re mentioned, you may need to key in the company’s name. Terms related to your business, campaign hashtag, and branded hashtag may also help you get valuable comments.
The beauty of using these tools is that they don’t collect historical data. Every analysis process begins when you develop a project. That’s why you first want to have a project running before beginning your social media campaign. It’s only then that you can use the valuable data collected by monitoring tools to boost your social media strategy.
Social Media Metrics To Follow
Social media metrics are vital tools because they’ll help you accomplish your social media analysis goals. To track the changes in brand awareness, you need metrics that can measure your awareness campaign results. Quality metrics help you get actionable social media data and insights. On the other hand, if you use vanity metrics, your social media strategy is bound to fail.
Here are some important metrics that can help you in your social media analysis process.
-
The Volume Of Mentions
This metric can tell you the number of times your brand’s name, keyword, or hashtag was mentioned within a timeframe. Because your main reason for analysis is to increase awareness, this should be your starting metric. If many people talk about your brand, the volume of mentions will also be high.
-
Social Media Reach
This metric examines when your audience is present on social media and the type of content about your brand that they love to see. While using this metric, you need to start by first comparing the social and non-social reach. From this comparison, you’ll learn how your target audience reacts to your social media content. It’d be demoralizing to invest a lot of time and effort to create a strong social media presence with no one to read, like, or share your posts.
If you find out that your social media platforms don’t generate a buzz during your analysis, you may need to consider these two options. First, you need to work on establishing an online presence for your brand. Activities such as running marketing campaigns, developing engaging content, and engaging your followers can over time bring you dedicated followers.
Secondly, you may choose to work with social media influencers if you don’t have enough time. Not every influencer can guarantee a successful operation. Therefore, you need to select the right influencer who can act as an authority figure and relate with your target audience.
-
Share Of Voice
Among the social media metrics, this is one of the most important ones. It shows you the percentage of online discussions that a social media account has generated. If you have a higher share of voice, your account will be more influential. And if it becomes very influential, it’s an authority that potential customers will consider.
Pros Of Social Media Analysis
The more actionable insights social media analysis can give you, the better presence and campaign you’ll create. Therefore, this analysis should be an integral part of your marketing strategy.
Here are some benefits of analyzing social media platforms:
* It Can Help You To Calculate Social Media ROI
Measuring social media ROI is one headache that social media managers may have. Analysis shows you how you can calculate the ROI of your marketing presence and recommends the metrics to focus on to increase your social media goal. It can also help you assess the effectiveness of your marketing activities and whether you’re getting sales.
The number of people you reach through your social media, the type of interactions, and comments about your content can tell you if you’ve targeted the right audience. If you find out that your social media analysis results aren’t satisfactory, you may need to change your marketing tactics. The data you get from social media analysis can help you know how to increase your social media presence.
* It Helps You Know What Your Competitors Are Upto
It isn’t very easy to be one step ahead of your competitors. To become a leader in your industry, you need to know what your competitors are doing. Analysis helps you know the difference between you and your competitors. Knowing your rivals’ strengths and weaknesses can help you position yourself and strategize how to be ahead of them.
The Bottom-line
Analyzing your social media marketing activities can help you know how to improve them. Because the social media landscape is dynamic, it’s essential to update your marketing strategies. The slightest changes in algorithms can impact your social media presence. However, if you continually analyze your social media activities, you may increase engagement and ultimately boost sales.