Welcome to the Kleber & Associates blog! Here’s the latest on Google Analytics and Social Media
It is extremely clear that technology plays a large part in our livelihoods—but have you ever realized how big of a role social media plays in our society today? If you take a closer look, the results may be a bit of a shock to you. Communication is constantly propelled by the latest social media sites, but the question that constantly arises is: How do we measure social media’s effectiveness? It’s generally accepted that those who visit social media sources may not perform e-commerce sales or contact form submissions directly from their social media visit, but usually come back later through another medium such as a paid search or an affiliate site. In turn, this makes it harder for social media professionals to actually prove the value of their efforts. When it comes time to make the case for social media to acquire a larger part of the marketing budget, marketers need to prove the economic value of social media.
Earlier this year, Google announced social reporting at SES New York, which will help marketers more efficiently and effectively manage their social media strategy in two key ways: proving the economic value of social media efforts and reducing research time spent looking for valuable influencers.
Google’s Social Analytics allows marketers to view and report on the value that social media adds throughout the conversion process. This means that marketers can view the conversion paths where a visit from a social media site was a part of the visitor’s site session before converting, as well as the conversion paths where the visitor’s source and medium were from a referring social site at the time of conversion. These two insights give marketers a chance to evaluate the different networks and see which ones are conveying high value, which are under-delivering, and which show underutilized potential. Once marketers have this data, they can redirect their budgets and invest in what is working, terminate sources that aren’t performing, and finally deliver metrics to stakeholders that substantiate their request for a higher budget.
In addition to realizing actual value driven by the various social networks, the Social Analytics reporting section integrates with Google’s Social Data Hub. This feature allows marketers to view data from sites that are a part of the Social Data Hub, ultimately granting them the ability to view the actual comments, posts, and shares that people are posting about the site in the Google Analytics account. The term “key influencers” is so important in social media, and recognizing these influencers allows a social media team to better identify the people that are distributing value to your business through their social media activity. This analysis gives marketers the chance to reach out to those beneficial influencers and build relationships that provide value to each through leaking content, guest blogging, etc.
Bottom line: Social media analytics helps take your social efforts from activities to strategy. The tool Google is providing us will tell us why our presence online is important, making it easier for us to see the value of social media and revamp our online strategies. Marketers that are using analytics and sophisticated measurement tools to guide their social media activities will be far more successful than those that are operating blindly.
