social media analytics: driving traffic through data
TRANSCRIPT
DRIVING SOCIAL MEDIA TRAFFIC, ENGAGEMENTS AND CONVERSIONS THROUGH DATA
Ryan Stewart [email protected] @ryanwashere https://www.facebook.com/groups/digitalmarketinghelp
What I’m going to tell you works.
Social media is designed to waste your time.
The 5 W’s
I'm going to cover the 5 w's of social media analytics: 1. Why do I use social media?
2. Where is my content performing the best? 3. What posts are driving the most value for my business? 4. Who is sharing my content? 5. When is the best time to post?
WHY DO I USE SOCIAL MEDIA?
That’s a serious question – WHY?
“Because everyone is – we should too”.
Social media isn't for everyone…
Let me give you an example…
• Build social signals (i.e. ReTweets, +1s, Likes, Shares, etc) on my links. I’m an organic search marketer – social signals help drive rankings. I’ve seen a tremendous positive correlation between the social signals I’ve gotten and organic performance.
• Drive quality traffic to my blog. I want people to come to the site, read a few pieces of content, bookmark it, share it, etc.
• Drive form submissions on our site. We have a number of web forms on our site that we dump into the top of our sales funnel.
• Build a large, active Twitter following. I do a lot of guest blogging and speaking engagements. Having a large Twitter following to help spread the word opens the door to bigger opportunities.
Everything I do on social media needs to be driving at one of these goals. If it doesn’t, I cut my losses and save my time.
Let me give you an example…
KPIs and targets greatly improve your data analysis.
For example: does Google+ drive form submissions for our site? • Without KPIs and targets: Yes, it does. • With KPIs and targets: Yes, it does, but Google+ only converts at .
001%. Therefore, it’s not a reliable source of leads for our website. Defining success metrics saves you more time by making analysis black and white.
Does this effort meet the target amount?
Yes? Scale up. No? Scratch it.
WHAT POSTS ARE THE MOST VALUABLE TO MY BUSINESS?
Laying the groundwork
1. Goals and Events properly defined, set up and tracking
2. All outbound URLs are being tagged
Talkin’ Dollars and Cents
You NEED Goals or custom events set up on your website to do this.
Tag everything!
Untagged links provide no insight.
How to tag URLs
Use Google’s URL Builder: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en • Website URL (required) – Enter the URL of the link you plan to place
• Campaign Source (required) – Social network name (Facebook, Twitter, Quora, etc)
• Campaign Medium (required) – The marketing medium (Social Media)
• Campaign Term (not required) – Leave this blank
• Campaign Content (not required) – Leave this blank
• Campaign Name (required) – This is the tag that differentiates your tracking. I strongly suggest you come up with a standard naming convention. Let’s say I’m posting a link to Facebook:
URLs still function perfectly
Tag URLs using standard naming
Report #1: Aggregate Conversions
Report: Acquisition > Social > Conversions
Insights: • Good for high level analysis • Total aggregate conversions by network
Report #2: Campaign conversion report
Insights: • What posts are driving the most traffic, engagements and conversions • What posts aren’t driving value • Knowledge to tailor your content distribution better
Report: Acquisition > Campaigns > All Campaigns
Report #3: Engagement conversions
Report: Acquisition > All Traffic > Source / Medium
Insights: • Engagement metrics by post • Allows you to judge if that post / social network is a valuable source of traffic
WHERE DOES MY CONTENT PERFORM THE BEST?
Report: Acquisition > Social > Landing Pages
Insights: • Your top performing posts / content on social media • Use this data to remove the guess work from content creation • Replicate what performs well, remove what doesn’t
WHEN IS THE BEST TIME
TO POST?
Your audience is unique – collect your own data!
Insights: • Who is talking about you and where • Gives you the opportunity to jump into the conversation, engage and expand
your reach
Multiple data inputs
Front end data: • Data from the social network’s analytics platform • Impressions, link clicks (if available), engagements /
interactions with the post Back end data: • What we covered earlier from post tracking • Visits, time on site and conversion data
We want to use both data inputs to find the optimal time to post content
Accessing Twitter Analytics
Finding Your Top Tweets
Analyzing front end data
Dig into your content by asking questions: • What was the Tweet about? • What time of day did you post it? • How many impressions / engagements did it get? • Was there a link? An image? • Did you use a hashtag? • Did you tag someone (@user)?
QUORA
Accessing Quora Analytics
Accessing front end Quora data
Accessing back end Quora data
Manual metrics
Keeping tabs
Hard work pays off
WHO IS SHARING MY
CONTENT?
Report #1: Tracking organic shares
Insights: • Who is sharing your content organically
Report: Acquisition > All Traffic > Source/Medium; Under "Secondary Dimension" add "Landing Page"
Report #2: Tracking organic mentions
Insights: • Who is talking about you and where • Gives you the opportunity to jump into the conversation, engage and expand
your reach • Only pulls through Google’s Data Hub partners
Report: Acquisition > Social > Data Hub Activity
Tool: mention.com
BONUS: HOW CAN I
SAVE TIME?
Applying your knowledge
You now know:
1. Which social networks you should focus on
2. What types of posts drive the most value
3. What type of content performs the best
4. People who like your content
5. The optimal times to post
Leveraging others based on data analysis
Automation tools
You know the best times and content to post – schedule it. • Buffer, Hootsuite, etc
Streamlined reporting: Dashboards
Streamlined reporting: Dashboards
THANK
YOU
RYAN STEWART HTTP://WEBRIS.ORG/SOCIAL-MEDIA-ANALYTICS/ HTTPS://WWW.TWITTER.COM/RYANWASHERE [email protected] WEBRIS