NOTE: This blog is the fifth in a series by NOW Marketing Group, Inc. on how to create and evaluate the social media content for your business or a client’s business.
So you’re on the fast track now, you have your buyer personas down. Creativity? Check. And throw in some ethics and you’re good to go. Or so you think, lets not wave that checkered flag too quickly. Before your marketing efforts make a full circle, we need to take a crash course in analyzing data. Break out that toolbox, because we’re using all our resources to gather our monthly insights and then further examine what posts work on a day-to-day basis.
Facebook and Twitter are both top-notch platforms, but did you know they’re also equipped with analytics? That’s right, with a simple click on the “insights” tab on Facebook you’re able to see a quick overview of page likes, post reach and much more. Same goes with Twitter, by hitting “notifications” you’re able to view just how many retweets, mentions, and followers you received, and in what timeframe you’re looking to track.
Now if you want to take your insights to the next level, Sprout Social is your go-to tool, not only does it make you look like a professional genius with its customization and infographic features, but you’re able to really magnify the data ranging from your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google analytic stats.
There’s no need for your head to spin with all these numbers and jargon, that’s what I’m here for. Here’s your need-to-know definitions to get you to that pro level.
- Total Reach/Impression (Facebook/Twitter term) – The number of potential social users who saw your content or any activity from your account pop up in their newsfeed, whether it be posts, posts by other people, page mentions, and check-ins.
- Post Reach (Facebook term) – The number of people your post was served to.
- Likes/Followers (Facebook/Twitter term) – The total number of fans your social page has.
- Retweet (Twitter term) – Sharing someone else’s tweet.
- Mention (Twitter term) – Communicating with another twitter user.
- Demographic – How many fans are women to men, age brackets and location.
We don’t want to crank out marketing content left and right just to say we did it. It’s important to know the correct terminology, so we’re able to review our social stats accurately and determine if we’re reaching our goals, and whether we’re hitting our target audience.
Now that you have your instruction manual on what to look for when reviewing your analytics, lets break it down even further by evaluating the daily posts you’ve created to see if they truly capture your audience.
A good rule of thumb is to make sure your posts consist of one of the 4 E’s – Educate, Engage, Entertain and Be the Expert. You can either do this through sharing a link, posting a video, creating a text only post, or adding in a photo with a catchy text. After you’ve hit the 30-day mark, go check out how your posts stacked up against one another by looking at the post reach, along with how many likes and shares your post received. By consistently analyzing this valuable data, you’re able to really set the tone for your audience and see when and what type of content they connect with the most.
Here’s a few tips to keep in mind when looking at your day-to-day posts to build up your fan interaction! According to Fast Company:
- Aim for Photo posts! Photo posts get 39% more engagement than links, videos or text-only posts.
- Are you getting to the point with your posts? Keeping your posts short and sweet goes a long way! Just by tailoring your Facebook post to 250 characters you’ll receive 60% more engagement.
- Are you getting your fans involved? What better way to do so than with questions!
- What days are you receiving your most engagement? Studies show that Thursdays and Fridays are the best days to post!
It’s hard enough to compete with your audience’s attention online where they are connecting with friends and family. That’s why it’s vital to produce engaging content they love to connect with, which means consistently revamping your content and measuring how it works. So, if you’re making an effort to regularly examine your social data, overhauling your style and posting times to fit your buyer persona then go ahead and take a victory lap!
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