4 Social Media Analytics Tips You Need to Know

Analysing your social media efforts can be so time-consuming and if not done right, you get a cluttered collection of data that is hard to read.

There are plenty of guides out on the Internet that will help you with the whole process but I wanted to focus on 4 tips that I think you need to be most aware of.

Look at the things that matter

It’s so easy to get lost in all the data you gather from your social media reports that some of us forget what our goals are and what data actually matters. It all starts with having a clear idea of why you’re using social media for your business.

Then, it’s up to creating a good analytics template you’ll be using. The template should be focusing only on the data that brings value. Don’t clog up the report with unnecessary data that people will skim through or not even look at.

It’s also important to point out that the goals you’ve set aren’t set in stone. As your business grows and changes so should your goals adapt to them.

Here are two templates you can use:

Know Your Timing

Timing plays one of the most crucial parts in a social media strategy and within the report. If you’ve only just incorporated social media in your marketing efforts, you won’t have an idea of when is best to post.

Within the first couple of months, you’d experiment at different times during different days. That way you can build enough data for you to inspect and decide on the best times you should post.

How you establish the best times to post across your social media channels depends on your target audience and followers. When are your followers most active? You need to be as specific as possible because before or after lunch won’t offer the best results.

These times will differ from platform to platform. So, it’s best to establish a table of times for each platform. However, this doesn’t mean you should be so strict with it. A little experimenting can always bring surprises.

Group Posts in Categories

One of the things that is always apart of the report is the best post of the week or month. However, by establishing this, you just acknowledge the fact and think you should post the same thing then.

A much better approach to this would be putting all your top posts into their relevant categories, so you don’t become repetitive.

For example, you have posted about a community event happening in your local area. It gets the most engagement and impressions for that month. Yes, you should be posting more of these, but maybe you should focus more on community-related posts altogether not just the events side of it.

Be aware of trends

Many of us develop our strategies with current trends in mind. But trends means that they change constantly. It’s not enough to establish the trending hashtags in your industry and think that’s it.

Trending industry hashtags change so much within just a few months and you need to be aware of that. Also, as you’re analysing your social media, you need to know which hashtag brings the most impressions and engagement.

Doing this might be too time-consuming. Of course, there are tools you can use to reduce your efforts. One tool I’d highly recommend is Hashtagify Me.