Why Analytics Is Your New Best Business Friend

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Analytics: a word that strikes fear and confusion into the hearts of CEOs and business owners across the world. What am I analyzing, they wonder and even more pressingly, what do I do with that information?

As confusing as the business of analytics is, it’s a key element to growth in your company and in this blog we take a look at it in relation to your social media performance, how to go about it and what to do once the statistics start rolling in.

If you’re looking to level up your social media engagement then read on.

It’s All About Your Audience

Quite simply that set of data is your direct link to your audience. Behind those numbers are the real people who are engaging, or not, with your business and who you are trying to reach. Create a post that attracts a lot of attention and that data reveals so much more about your demographic than their simple likes and dislikes.

It helps you to dig deeper and in turn asks you more questions. Was that post popular because of the content? Did you really speak and connect to the audience? Or perhaps you got the timing just right and landed that sweet spot on the morning commute where your audience is casually glancing through their socials before they get stuck into their work emails.

You need to become obsessed with your audience and your analytics can help you do just that.

Stop Wasting Time

Did you know that spending your time analyzing your social media is going to save you time in the long run? Perhaps, like a lot of CEOs, you’re happy to let your team throw all their efforts across all the social media platforms but in the long run this can result in hundreds of hours of wasted time and even damage your brand.

The simple take away is that you only want to concentrate your efforts on the social media platforms that your audience uses and only your analytics can show you that. If you’re not sure how, then visit websites like this for more information.

If your audience is not on Twitter, then you don’t need to waste your time Tweeting. While you may worry that you’re missing out, you’re not. Spend your time and your advertising on Facebook, Instagram or Pinterest. Wherever you get the most engagement and hit them hard.

Create Better

When you know where and when your audience engages with your posts, you can take a look at refining your content better. Look at those keywords, the style and language that really resonates with your audience. If you’re audience uses Twitter, how can you make visual images work better, find hashtags that catch flame and create Twitter-specific content that just chimes with those reading it. Your analytics will all feed into that. Just taking a look at your more popular and engaged with posts will give you a great clue into what your audience likes reading about.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel but you do need to reinvent ways of using your template in a fresh and engaging way.

You’re Going to Save Time

Quite probably your media team uses a software package like Hootsuite to schedule your social media. Once you’re on a roll with your timing and content, creating the kind of posts that really attract attention are going to become second nature.

This can only be the case when you’re confident that you’re reaching who you need, when you need to. Plugging those posts in and watching them do their job gives your team more time to dream up impressive content, think about social media campaigns and generally take your social media work forward rather than scrabbling around for ideas.

Keep an Eye on the Competition

Finally, analyzing how your social media is performing is the perfect excuse for keeping an eye on the competition. It will help you up your game and stay on top. Make sure to follow their social media accounts and see what they’re using to talk to your shared audiences.

If you notice a dip in your own conversion from social media to website, what are the competition up to? Could it be that they’ve launched an offerer that’s negatively affected your website rate? Time to take action on your social media and begin the fight back.  Also, be sure to measure and watch not only conversions but your product analytics as well.  This is critical to improving sales over all.

Whatever company you run, don’t underestimate the power of those figures, the facts behind them are going to drive your social media strategy.