Social Media Analytics

Techopedia accurately defines social media analytics stating :

• "Social media analytics (SMA) refers to the approach of collecting data from social media sites and blogs and evaluating that data to make business decisions. This process goes beyond the usual monitoring or a basic analysis of retweets or "likes" to develop an in-depth idea of the social consumer. Social media is a good medium to understand real-time consumer choices, intentions, and sentiments. The most prevalent application of social media analytics is to get to know the customer base on a more emotional level to help better target customer service and marketing."

Social Media Analytics relies on the use of various key performance indicators. These numeric metrics help measure the effectiveness of social media. Primary aspects to monitor are audience size, audience profile, reach and engagement, traffic, content analysis, community responsiveness, competitor benchmarking, and sentiment analysis. Here are some useful metrics that companies widely use today:

Recommended Tools to Use:

• Platform-Based: Facebook Insights,  Twitter analytics, Pinterest Analytics, Instagram Insights
• Management Tools: Hootsuite, SproutSocial, Agorapulse
• Solely Analytics Software: Simply measured, Rival IQ, Quintly Google Analytics

Tools like these allow companies to gather and monitor data. This data is then analyzed and made into a report. Reports are given to decision makers that can make the calls on where to improve, continue on, or stop efforts. This allows effective decisions to be made that can be supported by meaningful data.