Too often in trying to quantify our social media efforts, we get tripped up by asking the wrong questions. Here's a guide to the questions you *should* be asking and how you can begin to make sense of your social media analytics.
2. 20 years in newspaper
journalism
Miami Herald staff Pulitzer,
1992
Top female submitter of all
time to Digg.com
15th most influential
woman in tech onTwitter
(Business Insider/Peer
Index)
Mommy, wife & Siberian
Husky owner
3.
4. Traffic photo by Simon Forsyth via Flickr Creative Commons Social Media photo by Automotive Social via Flickr Creative CommonsGraph photo by Jim Sher via Flickr Creative Commons
16. To Diagnose
What works?
What doesn’t work?
To Prioritize
What goes where?
What money goes where?
To Evaluate
You need to know what ROI you’re looking for
17. Steps shamelessly stolen (with permission) from KamiWatson Huyse
1. Set measurable objectives
2. Choose your metrics
3. Choose the tools to measure those metrics
4. Implement
5. Analyze and present
6. Adjust and repeat
Image by Sam Teigen via Flickr Creative Commons
18. You need to be able to set an objective you
can actually measure.
This is not a goal, this is an objective.
Your objective should be realistic.
19. Goal: Increase traffic to and pageviews on
website.
UnrealisticObjective: Increase traffic and
pageviews by 200% in the next month solely
using Facebook andTwitter.
RealisticObjective: Increase pageviews by
25% year-over-year, over the next six months
using internal analytics and a mix of paid,
earned and owned marketing.
20. Wordle based on “The 6 Most Important Web Metrics to Track for Your Business Website”
21. What are the metrics you need to measure?
Vistors
Pageviews
What kind of traffic is the “right” traffic?
New vs returning visitors
Time on site
Bounce rate
Pageviews per visitor
Factors behind last year’s traffic
Traffic. Social Media shares, likes and comments. Numbers, numbers, numbers.
But we’re measuring far more than numbers.
What’s most important for you?
Brand awareness? Sentiment? Conversions? Market share? Retention? Something else?
Don’t be this guy.
We can get too caught up in the everyday of the numbers and overwhelmed by the … math of it all.
Let the data tell you its story, but you need to know what kind of a story you’re looking for in order to find that story.
You won’t find autobiographies in the cooking section of the library. You’re not gonna find conversions in your branding data.
Ask the right questions of the data. Data is just numbers. It will answer whatever question you ask of it and won’t know if it’s telling you what you need to know or what you asked.
Tracking users across devices still isn’t easy. It leaves gaps in our knowledge of what drove a particular purchase or action.
What is “Dark Social”?
We’ve forgotten that the web was “social” long before Twitter and Facebook and Pinterest and Instagram and Snapchat and and and and and and and …
Email, SMS, texting apps – all are social activities that drive far, far more traffic and conversions than any social site.
Dark social sounds sexy. Sounds dangerous. But what it *really* is, is a part of the whole picture that smart people have been paying attention to, anyway.
Don’t chase these. They keep rolling anyway. And then you see something else shiny. And then …. SQUIRREL!
I remember when Brian Solis released this
CHOOSE YOUR METRICS
1) Two elements of traffic.
2) Maybe you want to see people coming back a lot. But you need new people, too
How much time do they spend? How many pageviews?
Who’s leaving right away and where did they come from?
3) Did you have something unusual a year ago that caused a huge spike and is that even replicable?
Choose Your Tools Wisely
And many more
Those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it.
If you don’t implement your tools, analyze the results and then adjust to fix problems, you’ll never keep moving ahead.